See You in the Real World

I wrote a while back about my car’s transmission problems.

A brief recap: my transmission had to be completely rebuilt because I hadn’t changed my transmission fluid ever…

…because I didn’t know there was such a thing as transmission fluid.

On Wednesday, I brought my car back to the same transmission shop because my car would no longer accelerate.

And as it turns out, accelerating is an important part of driving.

So with my car once again in the shop, I was forced to borrow my step-dad’s old minivan (see below).

For those of you who don’t know your minivans, that’s a ‘94 Chrysler Town and Country, or ‘The T and C‘ as I call it.

And it’s no ordinary minivan.

No, this minivan comes specially equipped with a broken A/C, a moody right window, faulty automatic locks and a gas gauge that only works for the first quarter-tank so you have to just drive it until it conks out.

But it accelerates.  And that makes it superior to my undriveable Acura TL.

That is until something happened.

Two days ago I went out to my car to run some errands only to find the battery dead.

‘That kinda sucks,’ I thought.

Little did I know that it actually sucks way more than kinda.

The T and C no longer registers when a door shuts.  So even when all the doors are closed, the lights in the car stay on…

and as a result the battery dies…

Every. Single. Night.

In order for you understand the full extent of my little battery quandary, I’ve prepared a little skit.

The scene: A bunch of Alex’s friends are sitting comfortably on the couch watching The Masters in stunning hi def.  Alex needs to go to the bank.

(End Skit)

Now imagine that scenario everytime you want to go anywhere.

It hurts, doesn’t it? I know. I’m sorry.

Any of you had any annoying car problems? Let me know.  We can whine together.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how I gave up ‘not having a fish‘ for lent.

Easter is tomorrow and I’m sure you’re all wondering if I succeeded.

In short, no.  I failed.  But I failed in dramatic fashion.

A week ago I went to Wilmington for my friend’s wedding.  While gone, I left the care of Walt (the fish) to my friend Chris.

He did a fantastic job and I don’t blame any of the following chain of events on him.

Last Saturday night, someone went into the library in my fraternity (where the fish was being kept) and smashed the bowl on one of the tables.

Lying in a tiny puddle of water for nearly five hours, he was discovered the next morning by another friend.

Miraculously Walt survived.

My friend filled up a styrofoam cup with water and poured Walt from his broken bowl into the cup.

When I returned from Wilmington, the story of the attack on Walt and his heroic survival was the talk of the town.

Celebrating, I fed Walt and made plans to buy him a new home the next day.

I went to bed Sunday night proud of the strength and courage of my betta fish.

I woke up Monday morning only to realize that our caretaker had thrown Walt away, thinking it was just another leftover cup of water.

Was I sad? Yes.  Was I angry? Not really.

Walt and I made many memories during the four weeks that he was my pet but at the end of the day, he was just an $8 fish.

And I like to think that it’s the end of the day that matters.  Because that’s when it’s night.  And night is where the fun part of college happens…

For those of you celebrating, happy Easter and Passover.  For those of you not, have a great Saturday.

(photo thanks to Marit Cooper)

I believe a few things about athleticism.

1. Everyone thinks that he is more athletic than he actually is.

2. Once you get into college, your athleticism begins to decline.

In an effort to justify doing #1 since #2 is becoming more prevalent, I’ve begun finding new ways to identify myself as an athlete.

How you ask?

By not limiting ‘athleticism’ to only traditional sports and expanding its definition to anything that could remotely be considered a competition.

I’ll give you a quick example of someone else’s atypical athleticism before I go back to talking about my own natural superior skill-set.

I was in Wilmington this weekend for a friend’s wedding and Sunday afternoon, a bunch of friends and I got together to watch the Elite Eight games and Tiger Woods in the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

One friend in particular (Byrum) was in charge of manning the remote.  He successfully executed two straight hours of perfect channel changing.  We never had to watch a single commercial, never missed an important play, and never felt like we were watching something that was unentertaining.

It was one of the most amazing athletic achievements that I’ve ever witnessed.

I am not an athletic remote control-er.  But there are a few fields in which I’m incredibly athletic (see #1 above).

Here’s a list of my top 10 athletic skill-set:

1. Calling Shotgun

2. Sleeping on airplanes

3. Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts

4. Obscure Star Wars References

5. Facebook Pokes

6. Playing with Yoshi in N64 games

7. Eating Sunflower Seeds

8. Calling ‘Fives’

9. Snoozing alarms

10. Avoiding cracks on the sidewalk

What kinds of things do y’all do that are athletic by my new terms of the word?

(picture thanks to luiszarco)