I Still Have It. . . I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It (7 page)

The young woman who greeted us at the hostess’s podium was clad in a black turtleneck minidress and wearing the sort of microphone mouthpiece employed by the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

“Are these singing waitresses?” I whispered to my husband.

“I don’t know,” he whispered back, spotting a man on the restaurant floor wearing a black suit and apparently speaking into his breast pocket. “To me they look like they’re working for the CIA.”

“Rudner. Party of two for ten-thirty,” I said politely.

“The hostess’s lacquered red fish lips parted and said, “It’ll be a few minutes.”

She then turned away and whispered something into her mouthpiece.

Martin turned and whispered into my earpiece.

“She’s telling someone we’re too old and to sit us in a dark corner. I don’t like it here. Let’s go.”

“I told you, we can’t cancel. They’ll report us to the police.”

“We’re not canceling. We showed up, they didn’t have our table ready, and we left. No judge will convict us.”

We waited another ten minutes.

“Hold on a second. They have our MasterCard number and our car. Maybe this is just a front and they’re out driving around and charging things to our credit card.”

Just then a tattooed, multiply pierced, goateed CIA operative approached us.

“Mr. and Mrs. Rubner? We have your table ready now. Follow me.”

As we entered the spooky room, my attention was caught by a wall that appeared to be on fire.

“That’s interesting,” I remarked.

“It’s a new projection technique. There are only four reactive projectors in the world and we own two.”

“Who owns the other two?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, the restaurant across the street,” he replied.

I tripped over a large round object.

“Excuse me,” I said to the beanbag chair.

“Would you like to sit in our casual room or our table-dining room?”

“As much as I’d like to eat off the floor, let’s try table dining,” my husband said.

We felt our way to a long, low leather banquette situated in front of a sparsely set table. We wedged ourselves into the small space between them and then attempted to adjust our backsides on the cow-covered cushions.

“Are you cool? Sometimes people your age need extra pillows for lumbar support.”

“We’re very cool,” I replied, ignoring my spine’s plea for help.

“Brish will be your waiter.”

“Are you sure this wasn’t one of the Ten Most Uncomfortable Restaurants in L.A.?” I asked Martin as our escort disappeared into the darkness.

A shadow appeared over our dimly lit table. In the gloom, I discerned the outline of a looming human figure.

“Hello, my name is Brish. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have about the menu.”

“OK, Brish. Here’s the first one. Where is it?”

“You’re sitting on it.”

Evidently, a popular new game being played at restaurants around the country is Find the Menu. Sitting down for lunch with an old friend a few weeks ago, I reached for what I thought was the napkin under my silverware and sneezed into a list of foods available that day.

Neither Martin nor I had brought a flashlight, so were unable to read our menus. I was therefore forced to utter a sentence I’d never imagined I would ever say.

“We’re in your hands, Brish.”

Brish proceeded to recommend and order his favorite dishes: a raw fish cocktail served in a martini glass, a whole fish cooked in a lampshade, and chocolate antennae for dessert.

When we arrived back at our car, my husband tipped the valet, slid into an electronically repositioned seat, peered into a readjusted mirror, and turned on a rap station he’d never known his radio possessed.

“He drove this car three feet. When did he have the time to @%^$#*& everything up?”

Two hundred and fifty dollars later we were back home and hungry.

“We did it,” my husband proclaimed proudly. “We went someplace new and tried something different.”

“Yes, we did,” I replied. “Let’s never do it again.”

I’m a little compulsive about my weight. I weigh myself constantly. What I do is I slowly lower myself down onto the scale, while balancing from the shower curtain rod, and when I reach the weight I want to be, I black out.

Drive-By Hooting

L
ET ME BEGIN BY ADMITTING TO YOU THAT
I
AM
not a good driver. I learned the skill late in life, and to this day, before I start the engine I look down at my right foot and tell myself,
The big one is the brake.

That being said, I feel my driving is magnificent compared to what I see being perpetrated on the roads today.

Maybe I’m simply unaware of this, but let me ask the question anyway: Are they selling cars without signals these days? I can’t tell whether the car makers are cheaper or whether people are just being frugal and don’t want to use up their signals. Maybe nowadays people are merely unwilling to offer the assurance a signal demands: “I might go left, I might go right. I’m just not ready to make a commitment.”

Of course, I have the opposite problem. If I want to turn, I begin signaling three blocks ahead of the actual street in preparation for my eventual turn. I also confess to being one of those annoying drivers who forget to turn the signal off. I find the clicking comforting. It’s consistent and has a beat. It’s like a radio without the commercials.

Oh, and speaking of music, I’d like to thank all of the considerate people driving on the roads today who are concerned that other people don’t have radios in their cars and so play theirs loud enough for everyone to hear. I’m especially appreciative when the bass is so loud that the sound carries into my bedroom while I’m asleep and I dream the world is blowing up.

Why is the speed limit posted on signs along the nation’s highways no longer taken seriously? Recently, while I dutifully obeyed the sixty-five-miles-an-hour limit, the driver of the car behind me became increasingly agitated. I double-checked my speedometer and made sure I was traveling at the maximum speed. I ignored the hooting. A siren began to sound. I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed the impatient driver behind me was the Highway Patrol. He was gesturing at me to speed up. I pulled over and he sailed past. He wasn’t chasing anyone, either. I guess he just had to get to Starbucks in a hurry.

Everybody is in a hurry. Recently a city bus with an accordion middle suddenly pulled out in front of me with no warning. It isn’t easy for one of these buses to maneuver. They are the manatees of the vehicle family. Admittedly, the driver of the bus did that for a reason. The reason was he was behind a bus and he didn’t like it. To me, if you’re a bus, you should accept that fact and stay behind a brother bus. It’s like my eighty-nine-year-old aunt not wanting to live in a retirement community with the old people. It’s a deal that must be done.

I’d also like to point out the fact that honking doesn’t make cars disappear. Very often I’m stuck in traffic and suddenly I find myself in the middle of a horn concerto. I know horn honking makes people feel better temporarily, but it achieves so little in the long term. It’s not that other drivers have simply forgotten to move forward; the backup is usually caused by orange cones forcing cars into a single lane for no reason. I will say that there’s one situation when I actually like having people honk at me, and that’s when I’m waiting to make a left turn; that’s how I know the coast is clear and it’s time to turn.

People are reluctant and indeed belligerent when it comes to admitting they have made a driving mistake. Let’s face it, driving is at best a series of near misses. I feel lucky every time I return to my house alive. In my driving life I’ve been involved in one traffic accident and hundreds of traffic incidents. An accident is a collision where there is either vehicle damage or someone is injured. An incident is when another driver is temporarily inconvenienced and swears at you. When I’m at fault in a traffic incident, I always mouth the words “I’m sorry.” Recently a car backed into me while I was exiting a shopping mall. Nobody was hurt and there was only microscopic damage to my front bumper. The driver of the vehicle that backed into me bolted out of his car and screamed, “I didn’t see you!”

I just don’t know what my response to that accusation should have been. “Wait there, I’ll buy a bigger car”? “Can I pay to have your eyes checked”? “It’s my fault. There are moments in the day when both I and my car become invisible”? I’m aware that insurance companies tell you not to admit guilt at the scene of the accident, but I don’t feel that failing to look in your rearview mirror before you reverse is defensible.

The other day at a red light, the opposite happened. I stopped and the car behind me continued. Luckily, he wasn’t traveling at a speed that could cause any damage, but it was a jolt. He jumped out of the car and screamed into my window, “I was on the phone!”

Again, I’m unaware as to what my response should have been. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your call”?

The driving-and-phoning thing has, of course, become so out of hand that it has been banned in many cities, and I’m hoping all other cities will follow that lead. How did splitting your focus while driving a heavy steel vehicle become so popular? For all you busy executives who think you can’t live without a car phone, the solution is simple: you need a car assistant, a little person who lives in the trunk and who, when necessary, sits beside you to dial and express your needs to your clients. Of course, that solution has its problems too, since even listening to someone else’s conversation is distracting. Whenever I’m on the phone and my husband is driving, he invariably gets lost.

I saw a frightening report on one of the TV magazine shows recently about video screens inside cars. These are designed not for the restless children in the backseat but for the restless adult in the driver’s seat. Yes, there are now cars that are equipped with multiple screens that can be tuned to different channels. Evidently, there is currently no law on the books that prevents a person from watching television while driving, presumably because lawmakers didn’t have the foresight to predict the level of stupidity some human beings are capable of achieving. Eventually, watching television while driving will be outlawed, and while we’re rewriting driving laws, we should add a few extra, just in case:

No sewing while driving.

No bowling while driving.

No barbecuing while driving.

No washing your hair while driving.

No cutting your toenails while driving.

No welding while driving.

No glassblowing while driving.

No performing circumcisions while driving.

I think this essay is finished. So I’m going to put my portable computer down now and concentrate on my driving.

Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They’ve experienced pain and bought jewelry.

Everything New Is Old Again

D
OES ANYONE OUT THERE NEED A LASER DISC
player? Make that three.

First eight-track tapes, then Betamax, and now this. When I switched my VHS collection to laser disc, no one had a clue that DVDs would soon take over the world. There was also no indication that VHS tapes would stick around and laser discs would become technological lepers. Now I’m frozen in electronic indecision. My husband has of course taken the leap and now is trying to convince me to repurchase all of our favorite movies in the DVD format, but I know in my heart that DVDs will not be around to see my daughter marry.

My distrust of buying anything electronic is now deeper than the frown line between my brows, and that, before Botox, was mighty deep. Do I really need a cell phone that takes pictures? I don’t think so. I also don’t need a camera that phones people up. I don’t need battery-powered sneakers, eyeglasses that get e-mail, or cars that can carry on a conversation. How can I persuade mankind to stop inventing needless gadgets that break down before they go out of style?

I have a friend who still owns a rotary phone. She keeps it in her closet so that no one who comes to visit her can see how old she really is, but she had the last laugh during the last New York blackout. When I called my friends to see if they were all right, she was the only one who answered.

“Not only am I fine,” she said, “I’m the only person in New York who can dial out.”

The other day, when my husband’s electronic address book ran out of juice, he felt secure in knowing that all of his addresses were backed up in his computer.

“All I have to do is hot-sync it,” he said. “No problem.”

And it wouldn’t have been, had he hot-synced the information from his computer into his electronic address book instead of the other way around.

“@%^$#*&, I can’t believe it,” he said. “I hot-synced the lack of information in my address book to my computer and it ate everything in the file.”

“Ah,” I said. I’ve learned that in situations like this, it is unwise to say more.

“Luckily, I’ve backed it up.”

“Ah,” I said again.

“@%^$#*&,” he said again after extensive mouse clicking. “I’ve backed up everything in my computer except my address book. I didn’t think I’d have to because I had it in two places.”

“Ah,” I repeated.

“I know,” he stated confidently. “I have a program in my computer that can turn back time. I’ll trick the computer into thinking it’s yesterday.”

“Ah.”

“@%^$#*&, the last person who fixed the fan that cools my hard drive switched off that program. @%^$#*&,” he added.