My Evolution into a P.W.T.P.I.
Note to reader: This has absolutely nothing to do with HE.
When did I become white trash? Will somebody please tell me when I evolved from “she’s from a small town and doesn’t know better” to flat-out “P.W.T.”? Don’t most people move up in the world?
The following is a list of things I have done which provide the trail of evolutionary evidence:
• Strapping a floor-model glider rocker (wrapped in Saran Wrap—no, make that the generic brand of plastic wrap) to the top of a 10-year-old Honda named Rhonda.
• Strapping a used crib and mattress (fully assembled) to the top of the abovementioned Honda.
• Becoming obsessed with pairing red shoes with any outfit. OK, so maybe this in itself doesn’t qualify, but keep reading …
• Wearing the same two pair of yoga pants for my entire pregnancy and continuing to don them postpartum (even when they are covered in spit up) because they have elastic waist bands and I’ve convinced myself that they go well with lots of different tops and red shoes … like red sandals, red mules, & even red cowgirl boots.
• Going barefoot most of the time I was pregnant (give me a break, I had this weird, hormone-induced, lava-rock foot condition wherein I would wake up in the night with burning feet and the only relief came from using a spray bottle of water and a battery-powered personal fan (which, by the way, was all in one piece and came from Walgreens and only cost $3.99) so that when I was awakened by my feet burning like Krakatau, I could relieve them.).
• Having one goal for this summer: to get a plastic pool set up in our backyard.
• Habitually yelling out of my car window at people who talk on their cell phones and nearly crash into me and my prize baby.
• Making Husband take me to Christie’s Cabaret during our first year of marriage because I had never been to a strip club (this comes into play later).
• Spending approximately $300 at aforementioned strip club, $40 of which was from ATM fees. (While Husband was teaching 8th grade science, TN passed a tax hike and he got some weird raise which came as a separate $300 check. I just wanted to clarify that we didn’t spend $300 of our regular income.)
• And finally, living in a house that contains processed cheese and Franzia (VERY cheap wine in a box that is equivalent to five bottles).
I was thinking about all of this recently as we drove away from the Subaru dealership at a small town north of Nashville (this also comes into play later), where we bought Suzie Q. Subaru, a 2003 Forester. We traded Rhonda the Honda, who had been with me since 1995. While we were cleaning out Rhonda, I started crying and continued to sob all the way to the Olive Garden, where we had a celebratory meal. Oh, there’s another one:
• Celebrating major purchases over pasta alfredo at the Olive Garden.
Anyway … besides the crying fit about giving up Rhonda, I was contemplating the discussion we had with our car salesman about Christie’s Cabaret, his coffee mug, and his wife—all of which are related. Let’s call this salesman Travis, since that was his name.
As we sat in Travis’s “office,” while he was appraising Rhonda, I was pretending like I was Mma Ramotswe from The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana (a FANTASTIC book series in case you’re interested) and was looking around for data about Travis’s background. I thought that this information might come in handy when we entered into our negotiations.
My eyes came to rest on a silver travel mug with “Christie’s Cabaret” engraved on the side. I pointed this out to Husband and he just grinned. I’m not sure if he was having good mental images or if he knew what I was thinking about this being good detective work.
Travis returned after about 10 minutes to find The Goose gumming his business card, The Husband using his calculator to determine our final offering price, and me staring off into space wondering what I would name my detective agency … “The No. 1 P.W.T. Detective Agency” is in the lead so far.
“I like your coffee mug,” I said.
“Oh,” he replied sheepishly, “my wife gave me that, she used to work there.”
HUH? A salesman at a Subaru dealership in a Bible-Belt town in Tennessee who has a stripper wife? Can you say Travis-tee? This dude was going down.
It didn’t take me long to get Travis to confess that while he was working at his previous job as the manager of a pawn shop, he met the girl who is now his wife while she was trying to sell a cubic zirconium ring given to her by an ex-boyfriend. At the time of the CZ selling, she was working at Christie’s although she isn’t now, having just given birth to Travis’s son—let’s call him Tristan, since that’s his name. (As an aside, I’m happy to report that Tristan is breastfed.) Since they have been married for several years now, Travis has collected lots of Christie’s paraphernalia, which he used to display in his “office” until the sales manager (let's call him Troy, since that's his name) decided that this was not appropriate and may have been costing them some business. Travis was impressed by my P.I. work and said that he had slipped the mug past Troy that morning.
Cha-ching.
We ended up in Troy’s office pigging out on pizza purchased by the dealership and telling the story about the time that Husband and I went to Christie’s and spent his entire extra paycheck on lap dances and liquor. And just for the record, it was not Travis’s wife who was our lap dancer, because I saw a picture of said wife in his “office” and she didn’t look anything like our lap dancer—who, by the way, was moonlighting as a secretary at State Farm Insurance (further proof of my skills as a P.I.).
Let’s just say that we walked out of there very pleased with the final price of Suzie Q. and to top it all off, I got a verbal agreement with Troy that Rhonda would be given to his niece ... let's call her Darla because although that's not her name, I'm sure she is a grown-up version of scary Darla from Finding Nemo. But at least she's Troy's niece, and not some unknown P.W.T. owner who may or may not be a P.I. and who may or may not lead as exciting a life as me. I wouldn't want Rhonda to be disappointed, and Troy assured me that Darla is (like me) a safe driver with high aspirations for her (already exciting) life.
If you find yourself in need of a P.W.T.P.I., I’m available by appointment only.
When did I become white trash? Will somebody please tell me when I evolved from “she’s from a small town and doesn’t know better” to flat-out “P.W.T.”? Don’t most people move up in the world?
The following is a list of things I have done which provide the trail of evolutionary evidence:
• Strapping a floor-model glider rocker (wrapped in Saran Wrap—no, make that the generic brand of plastic wrap) to the top of a 10-year-old Honda named Rhonda.
• Strapping a used crib and mattress (fully assembled) to the top of the abovementioned Honda.
• Becoming obsessed with pairing red shoes with any outfit. OK, so maybe this in itself doesn’t qualify, but keep reading …
• Wearing the same two pair of yoga pants for my entire pregnancy and continuing to don them postpartum (even when they are covered in spit up) because they have elastic waist bands and I’ve convinced myself that they go well with lots of different tops and red shoes … like red sandals, red mules, & even red cowgirl boots.
• Going barefoot most of the time I was pregnant (give me a break, I had this weird, hormone-induced, lava-rock foot condition wherein I would wake up in the night with burning feet and the only relief came from using a spray bottle of water and a battery-powered personal fan (which, by the way, was all in one piece and came from Walgreens and only cost $3.99) so that when I was awakened by my feet burning like Krakatau, I could relieve them.).
• Having one goal for this summer: to get a plastic pool set up in our backyard.
• Habitually yelling out of my car window at people who talk on their cell phones and nearly crash into me and my prize baby.
• Making Husband take me to Christie’s Cabaret during our first year of marriage because I had never been to a strip club (this comes into play later).
• Spending approximately $300 at aforementioned strip club, $40 of which was from ATM fees. (While Husband was teaching 8th grade science, TN passed a tax hike and he got some weird raise which came as a separate $300 check. I just wanted to clarify that we didn’t spend $300 of our regular income.)
• And finally, living in a house that contains processed cheese and Franzia (VERY cheap wine in a box that is equivalent to five bottles).
I was thinking about all of this recently as we drove away from the Subaru dealership at a small town north of Nashville (this also comes into play later), where we bought Suzie Q. Subaru, a 2003 Forester. We traded Rhonda the Honda, who had been with me since 1995. While we were cleaning out Rhonda, I started crying and continued to sob all the way to the Olive Garden, where we had a celebratory meal. Oh, there’s another one:
• Celebrating major purchases over pasta alfredo at the Olive Garden.
Anyway … besides the crying fit about giving up Rhonda, I was contemplating the discussion we had with our car salesman about Christie’s Cabaret, his coffee mug, and his wife—all of which are related. Let’s call this salesman Travis, since that was his name.
As we sat in Travis’s “office,” while he was appraising Rhonda, I was pretending like I was Mma Ramotswe from The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana (a FANTASTIC book series in case you’re interested) and was looking around for data about Travis’s background. I thought that this information might come in handy when we entered into our negotiations.
My eyes came to rest on a silver travel mug with “Christie’s Cabaret” engraved on the side. I pointed this out to Husband and he just grinned. I’m not sure if he was having good mental images or if he knew what I was thinking about this being good detective work.
Travis returned after about 10 minutes to find The Goose gumming his business card, The Husband using his calculator to determine our final offering price, and me staring off into space wondering what I would name my detective agency … “The No. 1 P.W.T. Detective Agency” is in the lead so far.
“I like your coffee mug,” I said.
“Oh,” he replied sheepishly, “my wife gave me that, she used to work there.”
HUH? A salesman at a Subaru dealership in a Bible-Belt town in Tennessee who has a stripper wife? Can you say Travis-tee? This dude was going down.
It didn’t take me long to get Travis to confess that while he was working at his previous job as the manager of a pawn shop, he met the girl who is now his wife while she was trying to sell a cubic zirconium ring given to her by an ex-boyfriend. At the time of the CZ selling, she was working at Christie’s although she isn’t now, having just given birth to Travis’s son—let’s call him Tristan, since that’s his name. (As an aside, I’m happy to report that Tristan is breastfed.) Since they have been married for several years now, Travis has collected lots of Christie’s paraphernalia, which he used to display in his “office” until the sales manager (let's call him Troy, since that's his name) decided that this was not appropriate and may have been costing them some business. Travis was impressed by my P.I. work and said that he had slipped the mug past Troy that morning.
Cha-ching.
We ended up in Troy’s office pigging out on pizza purchased by the dealership and telling the story about the time that Husband and I went to Christie’s and spent his entire extra paycheck on lap dances and liquor. And just for the record, it was not Travis’s wife who was our lap dancer, because I saw a picture of said wife in his “office” and she didn’t look anything like our lap dancer—who, by the way, was moonlighting as a secretary at State Farm Insurance (further proof of my skills as a P.I.).
Let’s just say that we walked out of there very pleased with the final price of Suzie Q. and to top it all off, I got a verbal agreement with Troy that Rhonda would be given to his niece ... let's call her Darla because although that's not her name, I'm sure she is a grown-up version of scary Darla from Finding Nemo. But at least she's Troy's niece, and not some unknown P.W.T. owner who may or may not be a P.I. and who may or may not lead as exciting a life as me. I wouldn't want Rhonda to be disappointed, and Troy assured me that Darla is (like me) a safe driver with high aspirations for her (already exciting) life.
If you find yourself in need of a P.W.T.P.I., I’m available by appointment only.
posted by Kimpossible @ 5/01/2005 10:38:00 PM
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