The Problem with Yellow Cars

When I was young, I remember witnessing an odd conversation between my cousin and my uncle. As I remember things, my cousin said she wanted a yellow car of some type when she grew up. Yellow cars are very cool, after all. I know many people think red cars are the coolest, but red is too obvious. A red car wants everyone to know that it is better than everything else. A yellow car THINKS it's cooler than everything else, but can't be bothered to care if you agree or not. (Yes, yellow cars are all jerks!)

"Hey, check out how awesome I am!!"

"Oh. I see you're here. Whatever..."

Anyway, my uncle, overhearing my cousin's car preferences, said "Why would you want to get a yellow car? You'd never be able to drive it." My cousin chuckled and rolled her eyes a little, as if this made total sense to her. I, however, had no idea what they were talking about. So my cousin kindly explained my uncle's theory about yellow cars, which is as follows: if you think about it, you really never see two yellow cars driving on the same road at the same time. This is because there is a rule against it. There can never be more than one yellow car driving on any given street at any given time. This rule is explained to all yellow car owners at the time they purchase said yellow car. So, basically, you have to work out a system or schedule of some kind with all of the other yellow car owners to make sure you do not violate the yellow car limit.

Once I understood the background, I chuckled right along with my cousin at how funny her father could be sometimes. How silly it would be if that were true. What a kidder! But, over the years, I was often reminded of my uncle's theory because I could never disprove it! Every time I saw a yellow car I would instantly begin scanning every other car in sight, searching for another. But there never was one.

It's almost as if... *gasp*... they all agreed to stay home! It's true!!!!!

So, eventually, I went off to college. One day, while driving around with my roommates, I shared my uncle's theory with them. They immediately started trying to prove it false, just as I had been doing for years. But, over time, it somehow evolved into a contest between me and them. Their job was to find two yellow cars. If they did, my job was to explain the reason that those two yellow cars didn't count and, thus, reinforce my uncle's theory. Common examples for these reasons included things like, "No, only one of the cars was moving. The other one was stopped at that light because he knew he needed to wait for the other car to leave before he could start driving again." Or, "Actually, a divided highway is considered two separate roads and those cars were headed different directions, which means they weren't on the same road." Or, when my roommate texted me a picture of two yellow cars she saw while riding with someone else, "This is a still picture. I see no evidence that either one, let alone BOTH, of those cars were actually moving." As a result of these and other excuses that I used in our fun new game, some rules began to emerge:

• Both cars must be in motion at the same time.
• The cars must both be driving on the same road, not just both visible at the same time.
• The cars can be going opposite directions, but both directions must be connected parts of the same road. A divided highway is considered two separate roads.
• Taxis do not count.
• Neither do any other vehicles where the color is part of a business or service. (Such as a DHL delivery vehicle or something.) The vehicle must be intended for private, not business, use and the yellow color must be a purely cosmetic decision.

No one was ever able to produce an example of yellow car concurrence that fit the rules. There was always some reason why one or both of the cars didn't "count". The excuses didn't even have to get silly or outlandish. There was always a reasonable way to disqualify each example that was given.

And I think we can all agree that the taxi rule just makes sense. I mean, come on!

My husband and I met in college and he experienced my roommates and I playing our game. He, naturally, joined the resistance and also began looking for and pointing out yellow cars. One day, some time after we were married, we were driving along together when my husband said he could see two yellow cars driving on the same road. I began my usual checklist: they were both moving. We were on a divided highway, but they were both heading the opposite direction from us, meaning they were on the same road. I strained to see over the cement walls between us, while still paying attention to my own driving. As they passed us, I informed Brent of the sorry news: it didn't count because one of the cars was a taxi and everyone knows taxis don't count. He tried to argue with me, insisting that neither car was a taxi, but by this point they were out of sight and so he couldn't confirm his claim. We argued playfully about it for a while and then moved on to other things.

 "It was a taxi." "No, it wasn't." "It had a thing on top. Ya know. Like a taxi." "No, it didn't. It was a regular car." "You're wrong." "You're wrong." "What do you want for lunch?" "Pizza."

Some time later, we were disagreeing about something. During the conversation I said something like, "You're wrong. Just like you were wrong about the taxi." The disagreement was forgotten and the Taxi War began anew. On another occasion, Brent tried something like, "Who are we going to believe? Me, or someone who can't even tell the difference between a taxi and a regular car?" And again we dived right in. This became a pattern that continued... and continued... for several years! In the midst of a disagreement, one of us would try to use our position on the taxi as proof of our rightness, bringing on the debate again. We even began betting on it. When one of us was REALLY sure we were right, we would try to make a deal where we would research the point in question and whichever one of us was wrong about that would have to concede defeat on the taxi issue as well. Phrases like "I'll bet you the taxi that I'm right," and "How sure are you? Taxi sure?" were commonly used, and usually resulted in the other person backing down because neither of us wanted to take that bet. The stakes were just too high.

Well, not long ago, Brent and I were having another little disagreement. At one point, I pulled out one of the classics like, "I was right about the taxi and I'm right about this." Then, Brent did the unthinkable! He said, "You know, it's been so long I don't even remember who's right anymore. I have no idea if it was a taxi or not." "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" I yelled. "How could you?! I've been lying to you about this for five years and now you go and just ruin everything! You monster!!" The shock on his face and the shouts of, "Are you kidding me?!" were terribly satisfying! So I told him the truth. When we saw the cars all those years ago, I saw that there was no way to disqualify them. So, I used the first excuse I could think of. I figured I would tell him after a while, but then it became a thing. And I was having a lot of fun with my new thing.

After I let Brent in on my secret, we both had a good laugh. Because, while some people might think it's awful that I would lie to him for so many years, he had the good sense to realize how epically hilarious it was. But I was also a little/a lot sad. Because now I've lost my favorite mind game. Anyone have a good suggestion for a new one?

Life Lesson Learned: Sometimes, lying is fun.

Letters to People I Don't Actually Know

To everyone who lives within a 3 block radius of my house,

I was an elementary school teacher. One of my duties was supervising the students at recess. In order to get the attention of that many kids spread that far apart on a playground, you have to have a good whistle. And in this case, good means loud. So, when I cleaned out my classroom, my whistle made it's way to my home in one of the boxes.

I have a 5-year-old son. I kept telling him this summer to find something fun to do so he isn't just watching TV all day. Well, the other day, he did.

So, to answer some of your questions:

• That whistling sound is coming from my yard.
• Yes, I realize just how annoying it is.
• No, I won't have him come inside so it doesn't bother you as much, because then it would bother me more.
• Yes, I know exactly how selfish that is. And I'm good with it.

Sincerely,

Me

To the person in my neighborhood who owns a cat,

Your cat pooped in my backyard at some point. I mowed my lawn today.

 I hate you.

Sincerely,

Me

To the lady I had never met before, who stopped me in the store to ask me what school my son would be going to, and who then said to me, a public school teacher, "Do you want to know a better option than this public school crap?" and who, despite my comment that I am proudly a public school teacher so be careful what you say ha ha, then proceeded to tell me everything that has ever gone wrong in her autistic son's education and how much better it has been since discovering some online academy that has just been wonderful,

It was nice interesting talking to you.

Sincerely,
Me



To Costco,

Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel Pretzels.

Sincerely,
Mrwfl (Sorry, my mouth was full) Me

To whoever left these 6 shopping carts spread across these 3 parking spaces,

You are all awful. It was, what, another 6 feet to put them in the little cart return thing? You really couldn't handle that? And I know most of you are probably thinking, "Well, there was/were already between 1 and 5 carts there. I didn't start it. Is it really my fault if I'm just following what everyone else does all the time?" Yes, yes it is. If anything, you're worse. You looked at the effects of one person's lazy disregard for others and thought, "Yeah, I like the way this guy thinks." I mean, I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you had an emergency or some other sort of extenuating circumstance that would explain your inability to fulfill the minimum requirement of human decency. But I think we all know that probably isn't the case. If it is, consider yourself exempt from my disdain. If it isn't, oh who am I kidding? If you cared at all about my disdain, or the feelings of anyone else around you, you wouldn't have left the cart there in the first place. 

Sincerely,

Me on my 4th pass through the parking lot, still looking for a place to park

Basketball and Embarrassment

I am not amazing at sports. I'm probably best at soccer, but I was never as good as I should have been, given how long I played. At my athletic best, I'm decent and at my worst, well... let's just say you don't want to play Frisbee with me unless you are part Labrador and love a good game of fetch.

Okay, I got it. Would you please not throw it halfway to Hawaii this time?

One sport where my talentlessness always really shined was basketball. Oh, I could dribble up and down the court in a no-nonsense, by-the-book kind of way. And I could pass pretty well, as long as I paid attention to who I was passing to so I didn't accidentally pass to the other team (which I think I only did once). And I never forgot a rule once I learned it, but I seemed to only learn one at a time as I was being informed that I was breaking it.

What's that? I can't do that? Wow. Who knew. Oh, EVERYONE else knew that? Huh.

My weakest skill was one of the most important: shooting. I had/have terrible aim. And even if, due to some mystical aligning of the planets, I managed to make a basket, it was generally just a fluke. I could never duplicate it. All of this led me to the only logical conclusion: muscle memory is a myth! Yeah, they say that if you do something a bunch of times, your body will learn to do it without you having to think about it. Nope. Doesn't work. Must be one of those things people tell you to justify making you do some kind of drills. In fact, if Einstein really did say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, it was probably after watching me try to make a free throw.

Can you believe this girl?

So, I was never on a school team (because I may have been bad, but at least I was aware of it). But, I did play on a church team. Not exactly the NBA, I know, but I tried. And then came that bleak Monday in February. (All of our games were on Saturdays and I have no idea what month it was, but Mondays and February are both so bad that I've rescheduled this memory to allow for an appropriate setting.) Anyway, that Monday the ball was under the other team's basket. I was staying back at about half court, looking for a way to be useful, when suddenly the ball shot out of the crowd of players under the basket and found me quite alone. I caught it and dribbled quickly and purposefully to our basket.

As you imagine this scene, you are probably thinking how lucky I was to find myself with such an easy lay-up opportunity. Oh, you. So cute. So full of misplaced optimism. A lay-up was not exactly in my wheelhouse. But I was totally alone, so I felt like even I could probably just stop and take a calm shot from right under the basket. So I did. The ball sailed up past the rim... and then came right back down into my still up-stretched hands. Embarrassing, yes, but I glanced at the two teams worth of teenage girls bearing down on me from the other end of the court and judged that I still had time. I made a slight adjustment and shot again. Does Einstein have anything to say about doing DIFFERENT things but ending up with the SAME result? Because I couldn't have copied that first shot better if I'd been trying to. (Because if I'd been trying, I wouldn't have been able to.) Up it went, and down it came. The attacking herd was closing in. Just enough time for one more shot. Again, a perfect reenactment. Up and down. At this point, having missed three times from a foot away, I decided to accept the inevitable, and just found a teammate to pass to.

I have thought about this experience over the years and I have come to another conclusion: muscle memory isn't a myth. I just have something akin to muscle Alzheimer's. My arms don't make new memories. They do something once, and then they forget it ever happened. Even just moments later, they can't seem to rustle up even an inkling of what they have just done, let alone recreate it. However, every once in a while, they have a surprisingly clear, and frustratingly persistent, moment of memory. It's kind of the equivalent of your senile great grandfather suddenly and repeatedly telling a story about something that happened when you were 12. But, in the case of MY muscles, the story is never one of the good ones. It's usually something weird and vaguely inappropriate that you wish he had forgotten. He can't remember that you won a Nobel Prize, but he keeps telling the story about the time you wet your pants at the family reunion. And I couldn't hit a ball with a bat if my life depended on it, but you just watch me drop the same piece of bread on the floor four times in a row. Oh, yeah. I'm impressive.

Now, that basketball game happened about 20 years ago. It wasn't really a major life event or anything, so why do I bring it up now? Because that's exactly what my brain does to me. At random times and in random situations, it will suddenly present me with a memory of something that happened a long time ago. And as bad as my physical muscle memory is, my emotional muscle memory seems nearly eidetic. So I don't just have some vague recollection of what happened. I remember it all in perfect detail, including just how stupid I felt. And I can't just stop at REMEMBERING how dumb I felt. My brain decides I need to feel just as stupid all over again. And so I stand there in the middle of the pasta aisle, feeling like an idiot because I called my fourth grade teacher "Mom" that one time.

"And then the kids next to me started laughing! Seriously, Mom, it was the worst day of my ENTIRE life."

So, in the end, it seems like muscle memory, physical or otherwise, is a thing. The more you do something, the more likely you are to do it again. The more you think about something, the more likely you are to think about it again. And it seems, in my case at least, that the more you try to control what you do and what you think about, the more you realize that you can't and that you just seem to be along for the ride and that you're not really sure who's driving. But it's okay, because at least there's a lot of interesting scenery to see along the way.

Hey, look. I think I can see the play where I had to sing a solo dressed as a toy clown from here!

Life Lesson Learned: Ooh, remember the time you got really car sick driving on that really windy road and threw up all down the side of your friend's mom's minivan and felt really awful about it? Well, now you do.