Red Light House

My masculinity took a serious beating last night, starting off with having to buy my girlfriend hair care products after work. Sammi uses insanely expensive products to control her curly hair and keep it from attacking small dogs and children. She usually buys it at a place in the Lower Haight, but a trip to their website let her know that a hair salon two blocks from my office sells it as well. Lucky me! So after work I dragged Kevin along with me and we walked into this snooty salon. In a true needle-skids-off-the-record-player moment everyone stopped what they were doing to look at the two boys-who-have-no-right-being-here. “Can I help you?” a Jonathan Antin wannabe asked me.

“Yes,” I said in my deepest voice, “I’m hear to buy some Bumble and Bumble.” Everyone in the salon cracked up and went back to their highlights and gossiping and I went about buying the two small bottles of precious hair elixir…whose price per ounce roughly equates to gold.

A little later that night, I got home and walked to my car to move it. There was street cleaning the next morning and I needed to move it to the opposite side of the street. Only there was a problem…I couldn’t start my car. Battery’s almost dead. Not one to crack under pressure I went to my apartment and let Sammi know that my battery was dead, and I asked her if she minded moving her car next to mine so I coule jump start it. She whined a little about having to move from her prime parking spot right in front of our apartment, but because she’s a good sort, she agreed to help. I then did what any real man would have done…turn on the computer and look up how to jump start a car on eHow.

With the crib sheet of jump start instructions in hand we headed out. Sammi moved her car into position and I attached the jumper cables in such a way as to avoid getting boiling battery acid on the face. My car started up on the second try and I detached the cables from our batteries safely. Just as I slammed our hoods I looked down the street and saw a guy pulling into the prime parking spot Sammi had vacated. As he got out of his car I started waving the jumper-cables around and yelled to him, “Hey, she was parked there but moved to help jump start my car. Do you mind letting her have that spot back?” The man proved himself to be a true gentleman and moved his car, letting Sammi return to her former glory.

I moved my car to a non street-cleaning parking spot, and then decided to follow eHow’s instructions to leave the car running for 30 minutes. I left the engine running with the key in the ignition and then locked the doors, taking along my remote control thing to let me in after 30 minutes have passed.

About an hour and half later I remembered that my car was sitting on the street with its engine running and figured that it was probably time to go turn it off. I went out to the car and quickly found out what many of you may have already guessed…the remote control doesn’t work to unlock the doors when the car is running. Seriously, how was I supposed to know that?

Again thwarted by my vehicle, I walked back to my apartment and this time called AAA to come to my rescue. I explained the situation to the nice woman on the phone while Sammi stood nearby shaking her head at me. I deserved it.

About half an hour later I got a call telling me the driver was downstairs. I walked out to the street and pointed him towards the car. The driver was a man of few words…five, to be exact. “Where is it?”, “Card?” and “Flashlight” was the extent of our conversation. It took about 8 minutes total for me to point out my car, show him my AAA card and for him to jimmy the lock on the passenger side. After he opened the door he walked away and in the time it took for me to reach around and grab the key out of the ignition he had already jumped into his truck and driven off. I’m a huge fan of customer service, but if the job gets done (and I don’t have to pay for it) I’m perfectly happy to let an attitude of complete indifference slide.

When I got back home I fell back on the couch and expressed to Sam how nice it was that all this stressful car stuff happened while we were at home. I would never suggest letting your battery die or locking your keys into a still running car…but if you do, I suggest being at home. It’s much more pleasant that way.

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I had lunch with Stas this afternoon and related to him the whole sordid tale of last night’s automotive angst. He looked at me and said, “Don’t you have a keypad on your driver’s door? Did you try that?”

The sound of my palm hitting my forehead was audible for several blocks. The answer to Stas’ question is: Yes I do, and no I did not. Goddammit.

While walking down the street, Sam and I were approached by a young, good looking couple. “Excuse me,” the man said with an English accent, “do you know what a pecker-wood is?”

At first I thought he was asking for directions…looking for the elusive Pecker-wood Lane around North Beach. Then I understood. “Somebody called you a pecker-wood?” I asked him.

“Yes.” he said.

“It’s the same thing as calling you a dick.” I said.

“A homeless guy called me that.” he said.

“Yeah, it means you were acting like a cock.” I said, “I think you seem very nice, though.”

“Cheers,” he said, and laughed as he and his girl walked on, “have a good night.”

These belonged to Sammi’s nieces. I imagine some folks could get a lot of pleasure out of these.

The previous post about buying the bathrobe for Sammi took place almost a month ago when I was getting her birthday presents. Since then the robe has taken on almost epic importance in our household. It’s made out of a super soft, white, fleecy material and it has become part security blanket, part house pet. If she’s not wearing it (which isn’t often) she’ll suddenly realize that OH MY GOD I’M NOT COVERED IN SILKY SOFT CLOUD FUR and dash off to put it on and then sit down on the couch, rubbing her hands on her fleecy soft arms and smiling blissfully. I must admit that the robe is pretty nice. When she has it on it’s like having a full sized stuffed animal sitting next to me, albeit one I have to cook dinner for.

We’re going to see her family this weekend and no trip to see them is complete without some balls-out shopping to get presents for EVERYONE. Sammi hasn’t mastered, as I have, the fine art of never giving anyone presents so they don’t have unfair expectations of you. She’s a much better aunt to her nieces and nephew than I am an uncle to mine. I just figure I’ll get them drunk when they get older and throw a carton of cigarettes at them when they graduate Jr. High and that should erase any negative feelings they’ve come to associate with me.

In addition to the usual presents, her sister-in-law is turning 40 so her present required some extra thought. We decided that there could be a no better present for an overworked mother of 3 than a super soft, yummy in my tummy robe just like one I bought for her. This was easier said than done as we went back to Macy’s and found that they no longer had the white robes in stock. All they had were pink and blue versions that were too close to Easter egg colors for comfort.

We then went to Gap Body, Nordstrom’s and Victoria’s Secret looking for a similar robe, but had no luck. They all had robes, but they were either flimsy little silk numbers that would provide no cuddly comfort or they were made out of terry-cloth which feels like sandpaper next to Sammi’s robe. As we walked out of Victoria’s Secret I realized that I had just walked through 4 different stores worth of women’s underwear within an hour. I felt dirty. And alive.

It took another day of visiting shops and one more lady’s intimates department for us to find a robe of comparable quality. We found it in, of all places, a shop that specializes in down comforters, feather beds and pillows. Clearly a business dedicated to providing the world with warm fuzzies.

Last night I noticed a small hole in Sammi’s robe around the collar. This news was not received well. I think we’re going to have to import special spiders from China that spin the fine material this robe is made out of…then find the magical elves with clever hands that constructed such a thing of beauty. It’ll be a pain in the ass but it’ll be easier than trying to buy a new one.

When I got up to the 6th floor of Macy’s I had to shake off the lingering ickyness that comes to a man when he’s by himself and walking around in the lady’s intimates department. Trying to explain to sales-woman what kind of bathrobe I wanted to buy for Sammi’s birthday had been a tiring experience. Studiously avoiding eye-contact with the women casually thumbing through racks of thongs and foreign, lacy looking garments can really take it out of a guy. I was sweating a little…not a good look for a guy by himself in the lady’s intimates department. Ah well, I’d bought the robe and I was now safely removed from sick-o land.

My next mission was to get the bathrobe gift wrapped so I walked up to the first counter I saw and asked the woman where the gift wrapping desk was.

“You’re heading in the right direction,” she said, “bear left a little further down, then go up the stairs. It’ll be on the left.”

I thanked her and turned to start walking. I was immediately confronted with a huge sign that said “Gift Wrapping” with an arrow pointing the way. If I would have looked around instead of going straight for her desk I would have found it easily.

I shook my head and quietly paid tribute to the helpful woman for telling me the way, and not saying what was undoubtedly going through her head.