Thursday, November 4, 2010
Last Names I Am Sick of Finding on my News Pages
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Latest Recipe for Fame
2. Be named for a NASCAR racetrack.
3. Get pregnant at 15.
4. Congratulations...we'll see you on DANCING WITH THE STARS next...
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Ed's Got E-Books!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Oops! Wrong Number!
While staying at a resort last summer, I forgot that I had made a second call on our unit’s phone after calling customer service about some missing wine glasses, so the next day, when I told my wife to “just hit redial” when we discovered that we had no hot water, she was a bit annoyed when, after telling the woman who answered, “Unit one-sixteen has no hot water,” she heard a very confused woman at the Chinese restaurant I had previously called after the phone call about the glassware, exclaiming, “One-sixtee’? Order hot water? You order hot water? We no sell hot water! What is one-sixtee’?!”
Monday, June 28, 2010
Ed Makes a Splash at the White House
Buhrer Washes Camaro In White House Driveway
June 31, 2010
WASHINGTON—Taking advantage of the hot summer weather Monday, almost-semi-famous, six-time published author Ed Buhrer drove up from rural central Virginia and parked his 1999 metallic pewter Camaro in the White House driveway, removed his matching Mickey Mouse watch and shirt, and spent a leisurely afternoon washing the muscle car and drinking beer.
"This baby needs a little wet loving," said Buhrer, addressing a White House tour group (who seemed more interested in the car-washing than the tour of the executive mansion) as he slopped soapy water over the car, oblivious of how wet his cargo shorts were getting. "Gotta get her looking good so I can impress the chicks when I'm cruising down Route 22 back in the bustling metropolis of rural Louisa, Virginia."
White House personnel said that Buhrer had pulled into the driveway shortly before noon, the chorus of Eagles’ “The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks” pumping from his car's stereo. According to witnesses, Buhrer spent several minutes maneuvering the Camaro into the perfect spot in the shade under a spreading chestnut tree, and was observed drumming his fingers on the steering wheel until the song came to a close.
The shirtless 66-year-old then entered a side door to the executive residence and greeted employees with a round of high fives and a variety of nicknames.
"Hey, hot stuff, looking good," Buhrer told a passing aide. "Would you know where I could get a little bucket-and-sponge action? My mean machine needs to be cleaned."
After acquiring the necessary washing materials, the bare-chested former English and writing teacher, originally from New Jersey (of course), returned to the driveway, where he spent several moments staring in apparent awe at the Bugs Bunny emblem on the side of his car.
Buhrer, who purchased the spiffy Camaro new in 1999 – after saving dimes in a Log Cabin syrup jar for twenty years - has made an annual tradition of taking time each year to wash and tune-up his vehicle in some well-known spot. In 2008 alone, the veteran teacher and full-contact yodeler reportedly ignored his wife’s nagging about household chores for a week in order to spend some quality time "taking care of [his] baby, The Streak" and washed it in the parking lot at Natural Bridge, VA. The year before, it was the turn of the four presidents to look down upon the car-washing from their vantage point on Mt. Rushmore. Next year, Buhrer plans to do the washing and waxing in the parking lot of Rutt's Hut in Clifton, New Jersey.
"He does this every year and it really seems to rejuvenate him," Chip Morris, one of many younger teachers that Buhrer has mentored over the years, said. "Back in 2006, the car was up on blocks in the high-school parking lot, and he was so busy rotating those tires that he forgot he had a fifth-period Advanced Composition class."
"What're you gonna do, though?" Todd Ryan, guidance director and another younger staff member, added. "That car rocks."
As Buhrer gently applied a sponge to the hood and moved it in small circular motions across the car's contours, a number of White House interns walked by and caught the former teacher's attention.
"She's a real beaut, ain't she?" said Buhrer, popping open a green glass bottle of Rolling Rock and tilting back his head to take a long drink. "The reason GM was in the shitter is because they discontinued this car. Now they’ve done the same thing to Pontiac. Now the morons are bringing the Camaro back. Why didn’t they ask me? The White House needs to send a SWAT team of proctologists up to Detroit to help those bigshots at GM find their heads!”
"Oops, looks like I got a little brew on me," added Buhrer, referring to his thatch of graying chest hairs. "Any of you girls care to join me for another tallboy?"
Buhrer then spent the next 15 minutes answering questions about the features on his 5-speed Camaro.
"They don't make kick-ass rides like this anymore, sweetheart," said Buhrer, shaking his head in exaggerated disappointment. "And check out these rims. They're a real bitch to clean, but they're totally worth it."
"Back in the day we used to call 'em babe magnets," Buhrer continued. "One babe caught a glimpse of those rims after the Springsteen concert in Richmond in '05 and she couldn't get into that passenger seat fast enough. If this was forty years ago, she would've been in the back seat! If any of you girls wanna take a ride, just let ol' Eddie know."
For the remainder of the day, Buhrer occupied himself with hosing off his car, giving the side doors an extra coat of wax, and throwing out a variety of items from beneath its front seats, including an outdated Tennessee road map, a photo of George W. Bush with numerous dart holes in it, an issue of MAD magazine from 2001, and an ungraded student essay from 2003, across the top of which he had written "Don't Procreate, please! (Look it up, moron!)"
According to White House officials, Buhrer was still hanging out in the driveway long after dusk, revving the engine at passersby and explaining the intricacies of a modern V-6 motor to anyone within earshot.
As of press time, Buhrer had convinced several of the White House’s Marine guards to let him show them around Louisa County, Virginia and sample his world-famous pizza. A White House spokesperson who requested anonymity while discussing pizza said that the President had already requested the recipe (keeping the request from any of his Chicago-based deep-dish-loving constituents).
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Country Drivers
FOUND WHILE DRIVING
In America, starting a car and going out onto a road can be a harrowing experience; at other times, it can be irritating; sometimes it’s just plain entertaining. In any event, the common motorist is likely -- or liable -- to run into all sorts of drivers on the road (no pun intended). In Louisa County, Virginia, an abundance of these types exist, even in a county with such a small population. These drivers fall into some easily recognizable categories. There are the Clueless, the Meanderers, the Musicians, and the Cools, as well as the Putt-Putts and the Tourists. Some of these types probably contribute to the growing concern over incidents of road rage; others are simply evidence that not all gene pools contain genetic material destined for the inside of the human cranial cavity. One such type of the latter group is the Clueless driver.
The Clueless driver, as the name implies, hasn’t a clue as to where she is going or how to let other drivers know where she is going. Take Edith Clueless, for example. Edith is driving along Route 208, just outside of town, at the prescribed speed of 25 MPH. As she nears the entrance to the Louisa Health Care Center, she comes to a complete stop in the right lane; then she begins to turn left into the nursing home at an exact, ninety-degree angle. It is at that point that she turns on her left turn signal.
“Why is that person blowing his horn at me?” she wonders in shocked surprise as she watches a large pickup truck zoom off down the highway, its driver shaking an arm in the air.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle of Mineral, Abner Clueless is slowly proceeding along Main Street; before the post office, he slows to almost a complete stop, but does turn on his left turn signal; then he starts up again and proceeds to the next side street, turning on his directional signal again. Once more, he starts going straight again, this time finally turning left into the post-office lot, neglecting to signal this time. After all, he probably figures that he’s used that particular lever attached to the steering column twice before, so anyone behind him (if he has even looked in his rear-view mirror) should be able to figure out which way he was planning to go.
Somewhere near Trevilians, Martha Clueless has just made a left onto 613, slamming on the brakes just before exiting Route 33 and using no turn signal at all. She, too, wonders why that rude man had screamed such vile things about her and her mother. Like the Clueless drivers can cause anger and even accidents, the Meanderers can do the same things.
Meanderers are those drivers who must not have been able to walk in a straight line down high-school hallways, because they can’t drive in a straight line down a road, either. They wander from the white line on the side of the road to the double line in the middle, frequently touching both lines with the tires of their vehicles. We can observe Nelson Meanderer as he maneuvers his 1976 Oldsmobile along Route 22, halfway between Boswells Tavern and Trevilians. When the right wheels pass the white line and hit gravel, he knows it’s time to turn the wheel slightly to the left and get over onto the middle of the road, a somewhat disconcerting sight to Tom Driver, who is coming from the opposite direction. Nelson admires Tom’s deft driving ability as Tom maneuvers his Toyota Corolla along the right ditch until he’s passed Nelson and can pull back onto the highway again.
Meanwhile, somewhere between Gordonsville and Barboursville, Margaret Meanderer is weaving her way back and forth between the lines, her hands clenched tightly in the 10 and 2 positions on the wheel, as she peers myopically through the space between the top of the steering wheel and the top of the dashboard. On the other end of the county, Leander Meanderer is wandering from one side of the road to the other as he fiddles with the tracks on the latest CD by Bad Daddy and the Gangsta Thuggies, wondering absently what the motorist coming the other way was waving his fist out of the window for. While both the Clueless and the Meanderer are apt to cause accidents because of their bad driving, the Tourists are apt to just cause anger in anyone who is following behind them.
Tourists are those drivers, usually farming fellows above the age of forty, who tend to drive into town once or maybe twice a month, usually in trucks that sport license plates that say “Farm Use Only” on them. These “tourists” have heads on swivels because they need to be able to drive by looking to the left and right, but rarely straight ahead.
Take Abner Tourist. Someone driving behind Abner can observe Abner’s head, silhouetted in the cab of his 1973 Ford pickup, as he drives slowly along the main street in Louisa, alternately looking to his left and then to his right. We can almost hear him saying to himself,
“Dang, that thar gas station closed up again!” followed quickly by “Yep, Pettit closed down, too,” followed even more closely by “Ferebee done got sold; wonder when they done that!” all at a speed of six miles an hour.
Meanwhile, out on 669, halfway toward Blue Ridge Shores, Milton Tourist keeps slowing down in his 1968 Chevrolet farm truck as he takes in the scenery and admires the latest additions to Silas Peckam’s cow pasture. Six miles away, in Mineral, Dicky Don Tourist has acquired an entire train of automobiles and trucks behind him as he proceeds along 522, looking to his right and left to see what stores have closed up and how many flowers have been left in the memorial cemetery. Of course, these Tourists are not likely to cause any accidents, since their average speed is usually around twenty miles an hour, although the possibility does exist that some impatient driver behind them, eager to get the ice cream home before it reverts back to just plain cream, might try to pass in a no-passing zone and cause a tragic, head-on collision with a car coming the other way, whose driver had no idea that one of the cars was going to jump the tracks and leave the Tourist train. Another type found on the road, although not likely to cause anger or accidents, is the Musician.
This type can be observed using his vehicle as a part of a band, usually the drums. We can see Homer Musician, who is proceeding at the high rate of speed along a winding stretch of Route 605, banging merrily away on his steering wheel as he beats along with the hip-hop music coming from his tape player. Coming the other way, Wilbur Musician has both hands off the wheel to drum on his dashboard during an especially exciting drum solo vibrating out of his trunk’s 400,000 amp speaker. Did I say these types are not likely to cause accidents? Sorry, I was wrong; Wilbur and Homer are now on their way to the Great Drum Heaven in the Sky; both cars are total wrecks, although Wilbur’s amp is still making boom-boom-thump sounds inside the smoking trunk.
Passing the smoldering remains of Wilbur and Homer’s last concerts, Waldo Musician drives his parents’ Volvo with his knee, since he needs both hands to play air-guitar to Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”
“Dang, some people jest can’t drive!” he mutters as he quickly takes his left hand off the air-strings to pull his car back onto the road. Meanwhile, somewhere else in the county, we can find the Cool drivers.
Look, there’s one now, just passing McDonald’s in Louisa. In his tiny little red car, made in some third-world country, with its huge chrome custom rims, Leonardo Cool passes slowly by the burger franchise, his head resting on the driver’s side door, while his right hand is nonchalantly draped over the steering wheel. This is considered “cool.” You see, Cool drivers are out on the road for that one, single purpose: to be observed by others, both drivers and pedestrians, drifting along the road in their customized Yugos and Honda Civics; the cars’ blue-book values usually average about $200; the custom rims and sound systems, which can usually be heard ten to twelve miles away on a still night, average around a thousand bucks. As stated before, not all drivers were born with fully functioning brains.
Heading for another exciting night to hang out in some parking lot in Richmond, we can observe Antonio Cool zooming along I-64, the vibrating waves coming from his trunk and rear-deck speakers blowing bits of litter off the road. Meanwhile, another motorist is wondering about the strange posture of Frankie Cool, whose head is tilted toward the middle of the front seat of his shiny black 1982 Ford Pinto. “How can he drive with his head in front of the rear-view mirror...and why’s he leaning all the way to the right?” the motorist wonders. What he doesn’t realize is that it doesn’t matter; Frankie is cool, that’s all. Finally, there is the driver that makes many others wish they were driving a tank or a bulldozer; these are the Putt-Putts.
Putt-Putts are, as the name suggests, motorists who drive at no more than thrity miles an hour, and that would be on roads with 55MPH-speed limits. In most cases, these Putt-Putts, who are, 9 times out of 10, invariably women, rarely go more than 15 miles per hour. They can usually be seen peering fearfully and cautiously, between the top of the steering wheel and the top of the dashboard, like Margaret Meanderer, who is, by now, approaching Barboursville at exactly 39 miles per hour.
Take Elvira Putt-Putt, for instance. Elvira doesn’t like to drive, but since her husband Elmer had his cataract surgery and can’t drive, she summons up her country courage and makes the dangerous trip from Mineral to Louisa to shop at Food Lion. She doesn’t like to drive in the morning, when there may still be dew on the road, and late afternoon signals the coming on of night, so she likes to make a bi-weekly trip to the grocery store around mid-afternoon. We can see Elvira’s white 1989 Chrysler New Yorker leading the line of sixty-seven cars that have just exited the high-school lot at 3:30. These students will get home sometime around six that evening.
Meanwhile, Esther Putt-Putt is slowly making her way into town along 646, careful not to go faster than fifteen, especially around those dangerous curves. To be sure she’s being a safe driver, she gives the brake pedal a tap every two or three seconds. She, too, wonders why the man behind her is flashing his headlights and blowing his horn. Pulling over slowly into a driveway entrance, she frowns as he zooms past, and wonders why “that man was saying something about a ditch.”
Of course, some Putt-Putts rarely appear on the highway. Like Thelma Putt-Putt. Thelma refuses to risk her life on the road, out where all those crazy people who go over 35 miles an hour are; why, if there is rain, or snow, or fog, or mist, or dust on the highway, you won’t see Thelma putt-putting her 1988 Buick sedan on the road, no siree!
Doubtless, there are other kinds of drivers out there who inspire various emotions. There are the Nascar-Wannabees, the Blind Idiots, and the Makeup Mollies, among others. As I said at the beginning, life on the highways of America can be a harrowing experience. Be careful out there!
