Writer’s short block

By Buster McNutt

Some months the thought oven doesn’t cook as well as it is supposed to. This is one of those months. Most of this column’s topics come from my real life, as scary as that must sound — yes, I was a factory underwear inspector, but no, I wasn’t an automotive crash test dummy, at least not in the literal sense. [And the answer for Sharon in Wheeler, W.V., is “boxer shorts”].

So this month I thought I’d share some of the article topics that came out of the thought oven a little under-cooked, and never made it to these pages. They weren’t bad ideas — it’s just that some of the ingredients might have slipped past their shelf life date by a decade or so.

[1] Automotive gifts in the closet. Every year we all get stuff for Christmas, birthdays, etc. that automatically stimulate that “what must they have been thinking” cortex in the brain. Some of mine were a dash board mounted duct tape dispenser, “Hand Cleaner on a Rope”, ball cap with a small headlight on the bill, glow-in-the-dark steering wheel cover, and any number of devices that plug into the cigarette lighter, some of which should only be available in adult “bookstores” and Internet sites.

[2] Clothing optional friendly automobiles. Actually this was Latrell’s idea after he got back from a trip to California with his latest girlfriend “Seedpod”. A company there retrofits vehicles for nudists. Windows and windshield are tinted to let sunlight in, but gawking eyes out. A tank of suntan lotion is mounted under the seat, with a small nozzle added to the air conditioner vents to give you a good misting when you hit a button on the steering wheel. You can even program it to automatically spray every so many minutes. Heated seats are a given. They thought of most everything — say you’re driving along for a couple of hours and you pull up in front of the convenience store. As soon as your hand touches the door handle, a recording blurts out “Dude, you’re naked!” You can use any voice you want. Latrell used Danica Patrick — go figure.

[3] Kitchen-in-the-Car. Pretty much everyone eats in their vehicles, and it’s pretty much always belly building food. Why eat something in the car that you wouldn’t eat in the house — because you can’t prepare healthy food in the car! Kitchen-in-the-Car fixes that. The console becomes a refrigerator, the glove box a tilt out microwave — when it is in the tilt out position, you have pass through access to the oven, which is the engine! You can generally get foil wrapped chicken cooked in between fifteen and thirty minutes, depending on the size of your engine. A full Thanksgiving dinner can easily be cooked on a trip of 200 miles or more — you can drive to see Grandma in “the home”, and actually bring a fresh cooked meal! If that doesn’t get you back in the Will, I’m shocked! The dishwasher fits neatly in the trunk, although you do have to get out to load it unless you have a sunroof and order the optional roof loading rack which does a pretty good job at speeds under 30 mph. I’d leave the China at home just to be on the safe side. The same company is working on Bathroom-in-the-Car, but I wouldn’t hold my breath [or nose] waiting for that one.

[4] Historic Clunker Registry. This would be an Internet site where clunker owners could display their vehicles, look for those hard-to-find LTD Country Squire side panel moldings, lobby for endangered auto species legislation — “Cash-for-Clunkers” is mentioned in the Book of Revelations as a sign of End Times … okay, maybe just where I wrote it in — and just generally celebrate all things Clunker. You’d pay a twenty dollar annual fee, and each Christmas you get a special Clunker centric gift, like maybe, I dunno, a dashboard mounted duct tape dispenser!

[5] Mother-of-all-Trucks. Our state is considering legislation to allow trucks with triple trailers. This would be what, a 46 wheeler weighing 65,000 pounds? They’re not going to stop until the front end of a truck reaches the supermarket before the back ends leaves the distribution center! This from the same state that has started filling potholes with dehydrated beet juice? Can you say, longer trucks mean fewer drivers and more corporate profits? I’m thinking with the unemployment rate being what it is, we should go to shorter trucks. Shorter trailers equals more jobs! Yes, a pound of asparagus or Brussels sprouts from California will now cost $10, but how many people really eat that stuff anyway?

[6] Pet auto insurance. Thirty percent of drivers don’t have any auto insurance, but now a few insurance companies are offering $500 to $1,000 coverage on pets killed or injured in auto accidents, even if they weren’t belted in at the time! So, it’s the same amount for a dog or cat as a hamster or goldfish? Does the police report have to give a cause of death for the pet? They’ll probably have a code number, like #326 is “goldfish died of exposure when pet store plastic bag ruptured.” What if you have a cat and a goldfish in the car, you run into another car at a stoplight, the goldfish bag breaks, the goldfish dies, the dead goldfish is eaten by the cat, which chokes on it and dies…. The lawyers will be lining up ten deep!

[7] Cash-for-Ugly-Cars. We spend billions cleaning up roadside litter and removing billboards, but we still allow Pontiac Aztecs on the roads. Talk about a camel being a horse designed by a committee, the Aztec had to be a vehicle designed by a Congressional committee.

There’s probably no end to bad article ideas, which is a good thing if together they can turn into a good article idea. It’s like taking cloth scraps and making a quilt or refrigerator leftovers and making a casserole for the couple that just moved in across the street.

Granted it wasn’t a very tasty looking casserole [eight days is probably the limit for Brussels sprouts], but the new neighbors also happen to have an Aztec parked in the driveway, so I doubt they’ll even notice. •