Category: lists

I was in the car for 14 of 36 hours this past weekend (took a jaunt to Philly and back for my son to do an audition). I talk a lot in the car, because I like to entertain myself that way, and it keeps the driver alert while driving everyone else in the car crazy.

We should have recorded the conversations – I’d have 75% of a podcast ready to publish. I didn’t start taking notes until Sunday, so missed stuff from Saturday.

Here, in no particular order, are things we discussed on the ride back. Feel free to work them into your own conversations.

– Why did the person who called “not it” for driving through NY get stuck driving through NY both ways? That would be me, for the record. I declare the lower level of the George Washington Bridge a big disappointment because it felt more like a tunnel than a bridge.

– Why are New Jersey drivers worse than any other group on the road? I have never seen so many crazy speeding lane-changers. Like violent swipes from one to another inches away from other cars.

– If you owned a bus company, would you only hire drivers willing to wear catheters so they could do the Boston to NYC route without stopping?

– Is a Lamborghini a practical car? (That was Michael’s claim. I don’t know how he defines practical but he couldn’t answer my “what do you do if you are grocery shopping” question. He said they get good gas mileage. Google doesn’t confirm the claim unless you think 12mpg city is “good.” Also, if you forget how to spell Lamborghini use “Lamb or ghini” as a hint. I don’t know if ghini is a thing.

– Made Tom Google the surgery-free weight loss balloon we saw advertised on a billboard. It’s a big balloon filled with saline. I can’t figure out how to insert a big saline filled balloon without surgery. Tom says the fill it in you. “How do they tie it?” Secretly, I now want to try this method of weight loss, but instead of a saline balloon maybe one with smuggled diamonds. Also, can I just swallow balloons from the toy store to save money?

– The My Brother My Brother and Me podcast makes a joke about Gallagher 1 and 2 and references G1 being a dick. Tom hadn’t heard this (!) so we Googled “Why is Gallagher a dick?” but then we have to exclude the Oasis brothers (also dicks) and Dick Gallagher, a piano player who is probably a dick “because his mom liked the name” to get just the stories about angry racist Watermelon Gallagher.

– Made Tom Google and read me the wiki for the Scarsdale Diet doctor murder. Also made him Google Molly Pitcher to verify our guesses about why they named a rest area after her. I had the correct era, but Michael actually knew a surprising amount about her.

– We talked about a story Michael had from the audition. He’d told people in line around him that you can suck on gummy bears to soothe your throat. The people behind him told him they’d Googled it because they thought he might be trying to sabotage the line. We tried to decide what he would have gained by knocking them out with bad advice when they weren’t directly auditioning against each other. Michael: “Go ahead, Google ‘sucking on a gummy bear’.”

Me: “I don’t have safe search on.”

– Tom and Michael declare the Grover Cleveland rest area on the NJ turnpike honors a Muppet. We ponder if there are human/muppet porn movies but do not search for any because there must be some. It takes at least 20 more miles before I realize they meant Grover the blue Monster and not a humanoid Muppet named Grover Cleveland. Wasn’t there a boy Muppet similarly named?

– What is Peter Pan doing in the picture on the back of Peter Pan busses? Michael proposes Flamenco dancing and I think a magic trick with a quick “look over there!” redirect. Would you know it was a picture of Peter Pan if it wasn’t on a Peter Pan bus? “It’s young Robin Hood!” We didn’t look up the history, but it isn’t clear why Peter Pan = bus transportation. I also wonder what they had to pay JM Barrie for the rights, and if it was worth it (as opposed to just making up a new, non-intellectual property name.)

– how much do we hate the car’s GPS? Her alternate route suggestions to avoid traffic generally add time. She also says “Traffic jam ahead” when there is either no traffic jam ahead, or when we are already in the middle of it. WE KNOW.  I named the GPS lady Suzy because the car is a Subaru. A frequent response to her announcements is “Shut the hell up, Suzy!” The biggest flaw is that she seems to treat many highway exits as anti-turns we must be warned to avoid, especially when there is an exit-only lane. I understand you don’t want people in a turn-only lane if they aren’t turning, but that feels like a thing the driver will handle: if you tell me to drive 30 miles to my next exit, I will spend thirty miles NOT taking every exit that comes along.

– How difficult would it be for a kitten to play ragtime on an upright piano? The song “Kitten on the Keys” feels misleading in this respect. I don’t think a kitten has the body mass to depress the keys that quickly. Tom realizes it’s a player piano or nickelodeon, not a piano. So it’s a REALLY misleading song title.

– Discussed the relative merits of Peter Tork as a singer.

– If you trip and fall and rip your arm open on a cruise ship mini golf course, how much of it is it your fault for not being able to lift your leg over the sides of the hole?

– Changed the rules for Spotify Search Roulette. Use Gong Show guidelines of 30 seconds per song, then anyone can say “skip.” Each rider gets two vetoes – you can each use one “skip veto” per song. If there is a second Skip request after you veto the first one, you have to skip! Related: while the songs are awful, the search term “auntie” results in the most interesting song titles and band names I’ve ever seen while playing this game.

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14 hours driving to and from Philly plus an hour each way to see a concert Saturday night means we are all car seat-shaped and spent too much time in rest area bathrooms. But it was a good trip and I’d do it again tomorrow if I had to. (Unfortunately/fortunately, we won’t have to, at least not this time.)