HomeAugust 18, 1997
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no code radio (Thursday)Thursday afternoon, I stopped by the Honda Barn in North Reading to inquire about the mysterious radio code. "Don't you have the code?" they ask. "I don't think so." The service writer comes out to my car and pulls out the ash tray looking for the code. No code. She insists I got a credit card sized plastic card with the code on it when I bought the car. I insist I've saved every piece of paper the Honda Barn ever gave me since I bought the car. I pull out the fat envelope with the Honda logo on it. She searches through it. No code. I make an appointment for Monday so they can pull out the radio, find the secret serial number and negotiate with Honda for the secret code. I head off to my meeting. my same life? (Thursday)The cleaning lady shut Wilbur in the basement again. The car radio won't work without a secret code known only to Honda. Now that I don't have the Red Sox on constantly, I notice a strange noise emanating from the engine. Twenty police cruisers, one helicopter, scads of FBI agents, and cops with dogs and shotguns are chasing a bad guy at the intersection of I93 and Rt. 125 in Wilmington. And that;s only Thursday. Picture it: Massachusetts, a hot Thursday night in August, 1997. I'm driving home from my Thursday night meeting in Cambridge listening to the strange noise in the engine and wondering if it always sounded that way and I never noticed or the engine got damaged when I drove it to the garage in Pawtucket after the oil leaked all over Providence. I approach my exit. I see flashing blue lights. Damn, not another accident! More blue lights. I look up to see a helicopter shining a massive searchlight down onto the woods near the ramp. More blue lights. More blue lights. I stop counting at 20 cop cars. Guys with shotguns, dogs, and flashlights are combing the woods. Hmmm, this doesn't look like an accident scene: no ambulance, no fire trucks... A cop waves me on. I drive the rest of the way home puzzled. I stop at the Richdale store for some Poland Spring Water. The clerk says the cops are chasing a robber. Gee, I wonder what he robbed - must be something big. I go to bed. Just as I start to fall asleep, I hear a loud "pop" followed by sirens. I look out the window, see nothing, go back to bed to toss and turn wondering if the "robber" is nearby and whether I've locked my door and what I'll do if he comes by for a glass of water or wants to use the phone. I start to drift off again but hear a car directly outside in the parking lot. I look out the bathroom window. There's a cop examining my car with a flashlight. He looks under it, he looks in front of it, he looks behind it. He circumambulates the car like a Tibetan monk on pilgrimage, holding the flashlight all the while. I'm too terrified to move. Should I call out to him through the window? Will he shoot? What the hell is he looking for? Did the "robber" grab onto my suspension and ride home with me under the car? Or is it the oil I leaked in my parking spot? Have I committed some horrendous environmental crime? Am I going to rot in jail because my car leaked? Is the robber hiding in my raspberry bushes? I don't sleep the rest of the night. the case of the missing giga-pet (Friday)Morning already? Aren't I 'sposed to have slept first? I grab a cuppa coffee at Dunkies and drive to Kevin's sans radio. This is getting old. No radio. Nothing but the mysterious engine noise and my own yawns. 9:35AM - working the day watch out of child care
We search the purple room for the missing giga-pet. I find one of the two remotes, enough Playmobil people to populate a major metropolitan area, enough Barbie shoes to convince me that Barbie and Imelda Marcos are one and the same, Beanie babies, several chapters of Lizzy's autobiography, enough floppy disks to hold one of those old fashioned big mainframe operating systems, 11 million scraps of paper, 28 million Lego, Lizzy's CD player, Jellybean, ... NO GIGA-PET! 11:00 AM - working the day watch out of birthday shoppingWe take a break from giga-pet hunting for a field trip to Learning Express to buy birthday presents for the twins whose birthday party Lizzy is to attend at 1:00 PM. The store is full of disgruntled adults each needing a separate individual explanation that the shipment of new Beanie Babies has been delayed by the UPS strike. The phone keeps ringing. I keep hearing: "No Beanie Babies... UPS strike..." We shop. Kids find appropriate non-Beanie presents, plus stuff for themselves. Andrea has brought her own money, which she has stuffed in a pink Arizona wallet shoved into my pocket. She counts out how much she has, compares it to the price of one Beanie Baby collar & leash and one set of Beanie Baby sunglasses. She pays for her purchases separately and gets her own bag and her own receipt just like the grownups (if Aunt Janet can be classified as a grownup). The virtual pets are near the cash register and several customers are examining them while we pay for Lizzy's purchases. I seize the opportunity to point out Harold the goldfish living in a glass of water by the register. "See the fish? That's a living being to be treated with respect." The guy in line behind me asks: "Does that imply computers don't deserve respect?" In a moment of bizarre clarity I tell him I'd just as soon throw the computers and the giga-pets out the window. The clerk starts defending the giga-pets. They're so much fun. So educational. I don't argue. I just make sure the kids know that the fish is alive and can't be rebooted if he dies. Back at the house, we wrap the gifts, bolt down lunch, and head for the birthday party house - former home of Jellybean. 1:30 PM - working the day watch out of virtual realityThe search continues. We hear beeps, find one of Lizzy's pets hidden in the massive fortress that spans half the purple room. We minister to it. More beeps from somewhere else. 4:45 PM - giga-pet found! Between the couch cushions!!!!!!!!4:52 PM - giga-pet lost again!5:02 PM - Aunt Janet attaches giga-pet to Andrea's dress |
making false statements to a bank loan officer?The Boston Globe had nothing about the police chase. The Lawrence Eagle Tribune had it on page one. Apparently the guy was wanted for making false statements to a bank loan officer. They chased him down I93 from Pelham, NH. He hid out in the swamp all night. A police dog named Xando, who only understands Czechoslovakian, arrested him at 6:20 AM. No word on why the North Andover police were examining my car. Monday, Monday can't trust that dayI figure while the Auntmobile is at the Honda Barn getting its radio pulled I'll fix up the journal entries for the past few days. The Mac won't boot. It gets partway through the startup and freezes. I rebuild the desktop, startup without extensions, reset the P-RAM, try to boot off the Norton Utilities CD... all just give me different error messages. I call Apple and get the number of an authorized repair place near me. I call them in a panic. The Mac tech is reassuring. He tells me to do all the things I've already done. I tell him I've done that. He says to bring it in. I drop everything, unplug the CPU from all its cords,and discover that the little bolts that hold the monitor adapter in the monitor receptacle have sheared off. I bring the adapter with me and tell my new best friend about that too. He says he can probably have the Mac ready by tomorrow afternoon if its a software problem. 4:00 PM: Good news. Mac is ready! It was a bunch of trashed file pointers. I can pick it up anytime before 6:00. 4:30 PM More good news. The "engine noise" is not from the engine - it's a simple problem with the ABS brakes, easily fixed. And, oh yeah, we got the secret radio code from Honda and you now have a radio again. Sometime in between all this the power went out, I picked up my laundry, I got a Zoloft refill at CVS without a hassle, and had eggplant and spaghetti at Kings Subs. All in a day's work. |