Hark!

February 20, 2015 - 4:02 am
(-13° F)

A car horn begins blasting a long, continuous cluster of notes and does... not... stop.

"Gregg?"

It's weird that no one in my family really says my name.  The kids never say the word "dad", my wife never says "Gregg".  I don't know if it's from all the texting or what, but no one ever feels the need to capture my attention before they start talking to me.  The only time I hear my name is if something goes wrong in the middle of the night.

"Is that our car?"

I don't want to wake up enough to say this out loud, but, no.  Of course it's not our car.  Seriously, Mr Pillow, can you believe she even has to ask that question?  We don't have a car alarm.  There's nothing in the car.  In fact, the car is probably unlocked, because there's nothing to guard.  We live in a neighborhood where at least a dozen assholes do stupid things with their cars on a regular basis, making all sorts of noise and destroying my tranquility.  It's just like my wife to assume that our car, apropos of nothing, is suddenly making noise.

"I really think that's our car."

Ha!  Nice try.  Between you and me, Mr Pillow, I think she has it in for me.  I think she just woke up and decided that what she wanted most in the world is for her dumb, gullible husband to go stumbling out into what we both know is the coldest night of the year, a night so cold that there's half of a chance the lenses will fall out of my glasses, because they are made out of some material that contracts more rapidly than my eyeglass frames when it gets super cold outside.

"Gregg.  It's not stopping.  That's our car."

You know what, Mr Pillow?  I'm going to flip you over to the side that doesn't have so much of my saliva on you and explain exactly what has happened, because I have it all figured out.  I predict, Sherlock Holmes style, that our troublemaker owns a Buick.  Let me tell you why.

The horn in my wife's car, also a Buick, is really sensitive.  If you do that thing where you turn the wheel with the palm of your hand, brushing your fingers over the middle of the wheel will set off a short beep with every rotation.  Also, if you relax your grip a little and let your wrists touch the wheel's center area while you're waiting, as an example, for an old or disabled person to make their way through a cross walk, it will blast away for as long as it takes you to answer the question, "what kind of monster could possibly be honking at this poor... oh shit.  It's me."

Clearly, the plastic and metal of the steering wheel in some Buick on this street has contracted in the cold, much like the lenses of my glasses, and engaged the switch that triggers the horn.  It is simplicity itself, Mr Pillow.  Luckily for her, and for everyone in this family that never says my name, I am awesome and smart.

"This is Mr Pillow speaking.  That's your stupid car. Go fix it."

Minutes later, I'm outside in long johns and work boots feeling around under the dash and hoping to find the fuses before my hands go numb.  Whacking the steering wheel had stopped the horn, but it was easy to imagine going back inside, climbing into bed and hearing the horn fire up again as I drifted back to sleep.  In fact, it was hard to imagine anything else.

The Skylark Dashboard/Chinese Puzzle Box division of Buick's design team should be congratulated for putting the fuses in an easily accessible compartment that does not require the owner to lie upside down across the driver seat with his head under the steering wheel, but that's what I did for ten minutes.  So, those guys can bite me anyway.

Eventually, using the tiny pliers on my keychain, I extracted the horn fuse and felt a little like what James Bond would probably feel like if he completed a mission on the street in his underwear.  I went back inside, humming the theme from The Spy Who Loved Me and waited for the stuff that had contracted so tightly in the cold to loosen up a little.  I was awake for the day.

The fuse rattled around in the center console until the weather warmed up.  Once reinstalled, it would be easy to remember to remove it once the weather got that cold again.

So, I wouldn't have to worry about this for twelve full months.

[Nine Months Later]

November 22, 2015 - 11:00 pm
(16 °F)

The unfamiliar sound of my wife speaking my name startles me out of a dream in which I cannot hear what someone is saying because they are standing next to a large and noisy piece of industrial equipment.  As I fade into wakefulness, the sound becomes that of a car horn.

"Gregg, is that our car?"

Of course it's not-

"Go fix your god-damned car!"


Wow.  Who's dog wiped his ass on YOUR face, Mr Pillow?


This time, things were amped up quite a bit.  In addition to the noise of the horn, someone was knocking at our door and that meant that our dog was losing its mind.  The whole house and maybe the entire neighborhood was in an uproar and waiting for me to find my shoes.

The knocking was coming from our neighbor, who we know little about.  What we've gathered is that his chief interests are divided between garish illuminated lawn decorations and camo.  The fact that Larry The Cable Griswold was already on my porch meant two things: this horn had been going off for quite a while, and that I was going to have to put on some pants.

Fortunately, he had helpful news.


"Your horn's goin' off."


At least I knew where the fuses were.  I whacked the wheel to silence the horn and then went at the fuses with my pliers, squinting at the chart on the back of the panel.  There must have been a full moon or something last time.  I couldn't read a thing.  It took much longer than it should have.

When it was all done, I went back inside and crawled back into bed.  There was half a chance I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep.  My wife was texting with my son at school, sharing the adventure with him.  As I closed my eyes, she related the hilarious things they were saying to one another.

"That's great.  Goodnight," I said.

"You seem grumpy."

Be cool.  Be cool. "I am grumpy.  Because I was asleep.  Nothing personal.  Goodnight."

"Don't be angry.  She is on your side.  She's grateful.  Sleep well, my friend."

Thanks, Mr Pillow.  It's my imagination, but sometimes it seems like it's The Whole Universe against Gregg.


"Who's Gregg?"