It's in the Details

For better or worse, I was raised on fairy tales.  Sadly, the ones that taught me about my role and the way life works were largely the sexist ones.  Like, you don't really see yourself in The Three Little Pigs, so while it may have a good lesson about craftsmanship, you might not use it as a life template.  No, my lessons were that a handsome man will make you happy, but only if: you are female, white, pretty, kind, content with your lot even if you're being abused, and naive yet sensitive especially to others' needs.  

Basically, if you get wild forrest animals to eat out of your hand while you sing about how great the world is despite having to do all the housework while you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no one with whom you can talk, in a shack infested with vermin, and the occasional visit from someone who's slovenly and annoying and abusive and smelly and diseased or cursed but who cares about you, you have achieved the ultimate in womanly beauty, goodness, and rabies.  Go you.  Put a flower in your hair, you deserve it.

With a smile and a song...

Later these stories were supplanted by slightly better tales of magical things and doings.  All of which tend to occur with the protagonist trying hard for some period of time and then succeeding brilliantly and, in fact, effortlessly in their hindsight.  Or at least, with minimal effort because, you know, once you get the hang of something, well, you have the hang of it.

"Magic is forgetting the world was ever other than as you willed it"

Somewhere between 8-13 years old, this all suggested to me that the world was going to let me know when I'd hit the right chords, found the right person, landed in the right place. You struggle, then you succeed and the way you know you succeeded is that it's less difficult than before and well, it just feels right. Right?

Yeah, like the rest of you I had to disabuse myself of these ideas over time, yet there are still some hangers on, like... mental-illusion dingle berries. Even becoming aware of them isn't really enough to excise them from my being. So, it's not super surprising that at some point I had the idea that we'd see some land that just felt right, and we'd magically know. Oh, and it would also magically be affordable and have most, if not all, of what we need and want. Cuz that's how you know you've made it to the magic.

We're a little land search weary right now.  We searched a bit online last night for land to look at today.  I sent Adam some queries because... as much as we're excited about this land we saw advertised in Alpine (with a lake view!!!) I am a little bit done with heading out and butterflying around looking for the magic land, guided by fate and the wind to mostly find scratches, ticks, and squirrel poop.  

I want a fucking address.  Or GPS coordinates.  And you know what?  I don't want those GPS coordinates that don't work in Google maps!  Give me something I can use!  AND a real estate sign!  With gate codes and directions and a handout with pictures and details.  No more "Well, the owner doesn't really know anything about the parcel; she won it in a poker game while she was three-sheets to the wind on a ship off the coast of Kosrae in the Mortlock Islands of the Federated States of Micronesia.  The land might have a well but she doesn't really know, and if it does, it might or might not work.  Also, there might be snakes.  But there might not.  BUILD YOUR DREAM HOME!!!"

So... we're not looking at land this weekend and I am going to do some long overdue art work.  At least that's what I'm telling myself.  Chris has gone to the archery range.  But never fear, I do have a story I think you'll enjoy.

You remember the troubled tale of a dog who really had to pee; and his owners didn't get the drift, so he was forced to piss on the back seat of the car and then sit in it the rest of the day?  Well, you would not be surprised nor wrong to assume that it made our car smell bad.  Very bad.  Our car has been smelly before, but really it didn't make sense to assume that the smell would go away if we just left it and why would we do that with urine on the backseat?  We have some standards.  Not many, but some.

So, I began looking into detailing services on Sunday.  We last had our car detailed in Albuquerque, so it's been a few years.  There was this time, many years ago before the pandemic, where I had worked up this cleaning schedule.  I did this because, before the pandemic, I was supposed to start nursing school in April 2020 and I knew that there was no way I would clean a damn thing the entire 2.5 years if I didn't have some rock solid schedule.  My intake material for school actually insisted that I create some kind of schedule for study and shitting (as those are basically the only two things you do in nursing school).  So I did and every third month, when there are five weeks, it was to be car cleaning time.

And then there was a pandemic.  But that was ok because it was only going to be a few weeks until we were all allowed back out in the wild and businesses would be at full operation again.  And then... it wasn't.  And you know?  I stuck to that cleaning schedule for a few months!  I couldn't clean the car because the car clean-y places weren't open and there are no outlets near enough to the car at our apartment complex, but that's ok because it will only be a few more months until the world can open back up, right?

So, at this point, it's been maybe three years since our last detail, possibly a year since we last vacuumed it at the car clean-y place, and we have a dog who sheds a surprisingly high amount.  Our car is black inside.  Except it was dog colored.  I thought about taking a before picture, but I didn't really want to do that to you all.  Suffice it to say, our car was like a ball-pit where the balls were fur and the pit was our car.

I found a local detailing service and called them up.  I spoke with Christian and told him we needed an interior detail.  

Me: "Hi, I need our car cleaned.  Where are you located?"

Christian: "Oh, we're mobile.  We come to you!"

Me: "Brilliant!  I'm interested in an interior detail.  It's really bad."

Christian: "Can we do it Tuesday morning?"

Me: "That would be amazing.  You might have to charge us more.  We have a dog."

Christian: "Oh, that's ok.  I send three guys.  The price on the website is based on how long it takes one person to do the work.  It should be fine."

Me: "Ok... I just want you to know.  There's a lot of hair."

Christian: "Well, send me your address!"

I arose early on Tuesday to meet the unlucky detailers.  They were late because Christian gave them the wrong address.  Whatever.  They had me drive the car around to a side street so they'd disturb home owners, not us apartment dwellers.  Joe took one look inside the car and, without meeting my eyes said anxiously, "How much did he quote you?"

Feeling somewhat shamed, Joe and I agreed on a price I thought was more than reasonable.  I went back inside to work.

And hour later, I got a call from Christian.

Christian: "So, I know I said yesterday that it would be fine.  But I couldn't send all three guys this morning.  I had another job come up.  And I know you tried to tell me but... it's just worse than we thought.  And, here's the thing, if you want us to keep going, we're going to have to cancel our next job.  I really need to charge you more."

We still reached what I thought was more than a fair price.  I felt embarrassed and meek for being a part of causing them to miss out on their next job.  But, it's kind of like if Rapunzel had cut off her own hair.  And then the Wicked Sorceress wanted to climb up and Rapunzel said, "So, I cut off my hair.  I know it isn't what you expected but I'll tie the remains on this nail by the window and you might be able to climb that."  And the Sorceroess was like "Meh, ok" and then fell as the nail gave way and had her eyes pecked out of her dead corpse by turkey vultures.  

I'm sure Rapunzel would have felt bad.  It's not in the script for her to have had a part in the Sorceress' death that way, but it wasn't really her fault and she had been honest about the change in expectations.  Plus she probably got a seriously cool new do.

This is what I was hoping I would look like when I shaved the side of my head.  Except brunette. Except I don't.

Around 1300 Joe said they were just about done.  It took them 4 1/2 hours to clean the car.  But it looks amazing!  And that smell?  Nope, it's gone!  Hallelujah! 

You have never seen our car so clean and may never again