Key Issues

A Haberdasher Tale

Disclaimer: I'd originally planned to post this Friday night, while Key was at Eric's, in an attempt to keep this site on life support, Neglect being the 8th Deadly Sin. But I was distracted by an attempt to create the perfect ossa bucca, and some Grey Goose...

I'm not sure what is more despicable: the fact that a person travels to Tennessee for a blogmeet, with the back door left wide open, or the fact that some screwhead acts upon that fact. Actually, the latter. But who is tallying my transgressions? Certainly not Trotsky, so there you have it.

When I was 13 my father took me to his haberdasher, Harold X, for the fitting of a suit. I forget the occasion. Perhaps a spring dance. I simply do not recall. The fact remains, though, that I was there, and Harold fitted me beautifully, as he always dressed a young gentleman, and then it was time to drive the 35 miles, 40 miles, to the farm. As one left Chatham County, and entered Effingham County, there was this road. Known locally as the 9 Mile Straightaway. 9 miles of exceptionally bad road, its only saving grace the fact that even cops would not habituate it. No Man's Land.

Now the Senator, having had a wee bit too much of the Canadian, decided it was time for my wee ass to learn the intricacies of the manual shift, the clutch, the innards of a Karmann Ghia.

And so he pulled over at the beginning of the 9 Mile Straightaway, and explained the workings of the pedals, enunciating VERY LOUDLY lest I not understand his particular brand of pidgin English (an aside: I knew the dialect well, having been subjected to language immersion classes in it from an early and tender age).

So as I meshed gear, tested brake, gingerly sampled acceleration, the Senator pulled a pint bottle from the glove box, and a six and a half ounce Coke from underneath the passenger seat, and settled in for what surely was less threatening to him than fighting cursed Jerry in the Big War.

A word on that Karmann Ghia. It was my father's second, the first having been a used hardtop. This one he ordered direct from Wolfsburg. Why he, killer of Nazis, was so enamored of these Volkswagens was beyond me, but perhaps it was a capitalist thing. This was the first Ghia VW had ever put a cassette player in, supposedly, they being a newfangled device. Had to go aftermarket. It was also the first convertible Ghia put air conditioning in. Those two characteristics considered at the time mutually exclusive. But there it was. And on the day the old man drove to Bill Ussery's to pick up his Sunset Orange Kharmann Ghia... it was turquoise. Still nice. He overlooked the color, loved that thing.

Back to the task at hand. After several miles in No Man's Land I was getting the hang of the beast, he making me stop, learn how to use the clutch, proceed. But then his wicked sense of humor took over, and he began to take his tyrolean hat off his head, and smash it upon mine, driving it down over my eyes, blinding me, forcing me to weave uncontrollably. And he laughing his ass off. I would pull it off, proffer it back. And he would do it again. This went on for the next 12 miles, long after we'd left the Straightaway for Georgia 17.

He eventually tired of the sport, and settled in. And when we arrived home I was forced to go try on the suit, and model, nay, parade it around for me mom. The Senator dodged serious mommy asskicking that night once he explained my superior driving abilities, and dashing figure in a nice new Harold X suit. How? I do not know. But now every time I buy a new suit, I am tempted to take a hat with me and smash it upon my head as I drive home with my fancy new threads. Kind of a bond from beyond.