Character Preview

If you followed my last trip, you know I ran into my share of “characters.” And I’m glad I did. I like it that way. (What would Crystal Beach be without the Thong Man?) I hope I run into lots more this time around.

But I guess I didn’t need to travel to ferret out the characters; I just needed to get away from my cubicle. I’ve met a few good ones in the past few weeks. So, although I haven’t hit the road yet, I think we could all use a good “character warm-up” . . .

Preview #1:

To start off, we have Dr. Tahid, who I think counts – Geeta, hope you don’t mind the plagiarism :) – as one of the “Indian doctor friends.”

Since I’m leaving, my car had to go, too. I put an ad in the paper, and both Mary Jo Altobello (wearing a napoletano charm and coming from Niagara Falls, naturally) and Dr. Tahid (from New Delhi, just starting his residency at Mercy hospital down the street) called me the next day. Mary Jo liked the car and bought it right away; the catch is that we won’t make the actual trade-off until September 2nd, which does leave a little bit of a risk for both of us. So I let Dr. Tahid know that the car was sold, but that, if he’d like, I’d be happy to keep his number and give him a call if the deal fell through. He asked to come over and test the drive “anyway,” – and I said sure, why not. Why not, indeed . . .

So, Dr. Tahid came to test drive my just-sold car. He started down Salem Street, came literally inches from sideswiping all the parked cars on the right side of the street, and came to a complete stop . . . a good fifteen feet before the stop sign. Now, the Salem-onto-Abbott turn can be a bit difficult because the parked cars on Abbott block the view of oncoming traffic. So you have to inch your way up – peak – inch – peak – anyone coming? – No? No? – Ok, go! That’s what you have to do. What Dr. Tahid did, instead, was gun the car, from his complete stop fifteen feet before the stop sign, directly into a right turn. Do not pass go, do not look both ways at the intersection, do not collect your “my child is safe driver of the month at Franklinville Driver Ed” sticker. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic, and we reached Abbott safely. All that, and we’d made it about fifty feet from my house.

So I thought it might be wise to stick to the side streets. I directed Dr. Tahid to turn right on Athol, which he did. Like this: He came to a complete stop in the middle of Abbott Road, veered out to the left into oncoming traffic, and finally maneuvered the car to the right and onto Athol, whence we nearly sideswiped all the cars on Athol. Now, had Dr. Tahid been on the Orchard Park Little League Royals, and had he been trying to stretch a single into a double, and – most importantly – had he not been DRIVING MY CAR!!! – this would have been great form, a perfect banana turn. As it was, however, it was NOT great form, and it was making me, ah, “a bit nervous.” (You know that line in “Speed,” which I’m embarrassed to admit having watched, where the nerdy guy on the bus has to “translate” from Keanu Reeves, fiddling with a bomb underneath the bus, to the bus driver? And he translates one phrase as “Uh . . . . Oh darn!” You can similarly translate here for “a bit nervous.”)

So, trying to be as polite as I could, I asked Dr. Tahid, “You, ah . . .you do have your license, right?”

“Oh yes,” he assured me. “In fact, I just got it,” he added, as though this were an entirely uninteresting sidenote.

“Today.”

He smiled. I smiled (somewhat less enthusiastically). We drove right home.

Preview #2:

I also had to sell my bike rack. Some guy named John bought it, and he must have called me fifteen times to clarify precisely when he was coming to my house to pick it up. His last phone call came from my neighbor’s driveway, where he was parked, having confused the number 27 with the number 25.

So we went to my basement, I showed him how the bike rack worked, that was that, and we were ready to go. You’d think it would have been easy from there, right? Nope.

John picked up the bike rack – well, actually he more thrust it toward the ceiling. KAZAM! (Imagine you’re in a 1950s Batman cartoon – the sound effects are worthwhile.) Right into the heating duct! Whoa. What was that?! Better look around . . . BAM! Right into the concrete pillar! Whoa, again! Now what was that?! Better turn around and have another look . . . WHAMMO! Right into a pile of boxes. I kept looking around for Curly and Moe.

Anyway, John was a nice guy. We had a few more encounters with basement impediments but eventually made it outside. I couldn’t believe this guy was going to drive home, much less hop on his bicycle when he got there. I hope he wears a helmet. And I hope Dr. Tahid isn’t motoring around his neighborhood.