I got got got got no time

Guess Who?

(No time left for you) On my way to better things*
(No time left for you) I found myself some wings**
(No time left for you) Distant roads are callin' me***
(No time left for you) Da-un-da-un-da-un-da-un-da

No time for a summer friend****
No time for the love you send*****
Seasons change and so did I******
You need not wonder why
You need not wonder why
There's no time left for you
No time left for you*******


*Not really; didn't win that enormous 6/49 jackpot on Wednesday

**I sure wish I'd had wings last night, after I sang Blue Bayou in the karaoke contest. It was not pretty. I don't even want to talk about it.

***It's called the 401, and it's taking me to Windsor (in half an hour!)

****Angela, but I am working on that story. Really.

*****Dave, it's wonderful, thank you so much! (Now if only I had time to listen to it... argh; no CD player in my car. I know, I know!)

******And the moths didn't do any damage to my winter clothes.

*******Gentle Reader, and I'm so sorry, but I'll be back...

The Way You Do The Things You Do [reprise]

Today, I'm marking assignments.

Last week I told you about the student who emailed me to ask what I hesitate to call a stupid question, because I always tell my students there's no such thing as a stupid question, but really, there is, and when you ask a question like "Can I make it up?" when the assignment instructions clearly state, "Do not make it up," well, that's a stupid question.

What I didn't tell you was how I replied to that email. I wrote back to the student to point out that the point of the assignment is to choose a real company, and to personally meet with or talk to someone at that company, and I gently directed him to re-read the assignment instructions. Then I added a few lines about ABC Pizza: I told him that I had worked there when I was in highschool. I told him the name of the owner, then recounted an anecdote about how the owner chose the name of the store by randomly sticking his finger into the Yellow Pages. Then I said, "See, the truth is always more interesting than making it up."

Perhaps you, Gentle Reader, will understand that I was intending to communicate to this student that he'd better get off his ass and call ABC Pizza because if he tries to make up details about the company's background he ain't gonna be foolin' this here professor none.

Perhaps you can explain to me why the student apparently thought I was trying to help him out by giving him the company background. You can, perhaps, understand my utter bafflement to find that he wrote in vague generalities about how the company has been in business "for a long time" and "has a lot of stores" and then threw in the anecdote about the Yellow Pages and then, then, as if that wasn't cause enough to look forward to a D, at the end he writes "For more information contact John Smith, Owner" using the name I'd given him of the person I knew to be the owner twenty years ago but not actually giving any contact information.

And perhaps you can explain to the student why he's getting an F on this assignment.

* * *
This won't be the last time her students will baffle Postmodern Sass. Click here to read about the next time. In the next story in sequence, Sass explains why she has no time to write stories. Sort of. And then, finally, she gets around to writing the story she's been promising you all summer, about her friend Angela and The Cult. And she's not referring to the band, that is. It's a two part story. The second part will address the Boz situation.

I Love Rock & Roll

On the day that my course syllabus for Marketing 101 reads "Services Marketing" I wear my Levi's jacket to school. It has 28 Hard Rock Café guitar pins pinned onto it at the angle which the guitar would be held if, you know, they were real guitars and if, well, I was holding them the way you hold a guitar when you play it. Except for the one that looks like Paul McCartney's Hofner, right down to its being left handed, so it has to point the other way on my jacket.

"How many of you have been to a Hard Rock Café?" I begin.

[They all have.]

"Who's been to a really interesting one? Someplace exotic. Other than the one at The Falls, I mean?"

[They laugh. They tell me about their experiences at the Hard Rock.]

"Have you been to all of those?" a student asks me.

"Yes I have. I've been to the original Hard Rock Café in London, and to most of the ones in the States and Canada. I've even been to this one, and I have the guitar pin to prove it.

[And the photo of me and my teddy bear, Antoinette, out front.]

"My favourite pin is the one I got in St. Thomas. The island in the Carribean, that is, not the town here in Ontario, on the way to Windsor. I was on a cruise a few years ago,

[with the X, before he abandoned me]

"and the ship stopped at the port in Charlotte Amalie. This is the pin I got from there:



"My other favourites are the Boston guitar pin, with the lobster wrapped around the guitar, and my twin Route 66 guitar pins, one from Chicago, the other from Los Angeles.

"As you can probably tell, I like the Hard Rock Café. And, just like you, I go for the great food and the fine selection of draught beer."

[They laugh. If they're paying attention, that is.]

"What, you mean you don't go to the Hard Rock Café for the beer?

"I want to tell you about an experience I had at a Hard Rock Café in New Orleans a couple of years ago. It was a few days before Mardi Gras started in earnest, on a weekday, at about 3:00 in the afternoon. It doesn't get much deader at a bar in New Orleans than that time of day, and that suited me just fine because when I go to the Hard Rock Café I like to walk around and look at all the memorabilia on the walls, and that's hard to do when the place is full. I've found people get annoyed at you when you approach their table and say, Excuse me, do you mind if I have a closer look at that autographed B-52's album cover behind your head?

"The friend who was in New Orleans with me humoured me on this mission. He's what you might call blasé about music, but he's reasonably enthusiastic about beer, and I said I'd buy. We sat at the bar, and by doing so doubled the population of patrons in the restaurant.

"While I'm waiting for my beer I study the guitars hanging behind the bar, and just as the bartender, a woman named Chris, places the glass in front of me I squeal, Oh, it's Kurt Cobain!

"It's not, of course; it's only one of his three sonic blue Fender Mustangs, and it's autographed."

[His custom-modified Fender Jag-Stang is in the Hard Rock in Dallas. I haven't been there. Yet.]

"Would you like to hold it?" asks Chris, and before waiting for my answer, she reaches behind her with one arm like this

[I demonstrate Chris's movements for the class.]

"and the next thing I know I'm sitting at a bar holding Kurt Cobain's guitar.

"I was too speechless to say thank you. I mean, aren't those things, like, bolted to the walls? I'd always imagined alarms would sound if someone dared to touch one.

"So I'm sitting there, holding this guitar, trying to remember how to make an F chord, because I think that's the opening riff of Smells Like Teen Spirit,

[I demonstrate, again. To tell you the truth, I've been acting the whole scene out with an air guitar.]

"and I look over at my friend, and he's got this look on his face that suggests to me that he is not appreciating Chris's marketing efforts, nor would he care to hear my explanation of what services marketers mean by "the experience economy." In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know who Kurt Cobain is.

"Then I look over to the door, gauging the distance,

[I look over to the door of the classroom.]

"then back to Chris,

[then back to the students]

"then back to the door, and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I could make it!

[They laugh.]

"Of course I don't, but I'll never forget that bartender who made me a rabidly loyal customer of the Hard Rock Café."




* * *
Next, Postmodern Sass promises to finally tell you the story of her friend Angela who spent the summer with a cult in San Francisco. And maybe she'll tell you more about the Boz situation — the hockey game is next Monday.

The Way You Do The Things You Do

Every year I assign my third year marketing class the task of writing a press kit for a small local business. I am not what you'd call a textbook teacher; I prefer to give real-world assignments wherever possible. The only two rules for this assignment are, it must be a real small business — by small I mean it doesn't have a substantial advertising budget — and you must have personal access to it. It can be the place where you get your hair cut, or your best friend's father's painting business, or your uncle's construction company, but you must be able to talk to the owner to get their story, to write what in P.R. terms is called the "corporate backgrounder."

Two days before the assignment was due, I received an email message from one of my students:

"Hi, just wondering, for the corporate background, is it okay if the "story" is fabricated. I am doing my PR Assignment on ABC Pizza, a local pizza place here in town and there isn't any info on the Internet on who founded the company or how it came to be what it is today. I was just hoping that it was ok to make this part up, thanks."

There are surprising benefits to teaching at the university you didn't attend, but that's located in the town where you were born.

When I was in high school, I worked at ABC Pizza.

* * *
The next story is also about Postmodern Sass's students. And about her Levi's jacket. Or, click here to find out what grade this student got on his assignment.

Working For The Weekend [refrain]

Every few weeks on a Friday afternoon Postmodern Sass quits work early to thank her readers for reading, and shares some of their email messages and other tidbits with you.

Today's mantra:

I WILL finish this chapter of my thesis this weekend so I can send it to my advisors on Monday.

I WILL.

Yessir, I absofuckinlutely WILL.

But in between writing my thesis — sometimes you have to take a break from writing to write — I will check on the comments here, because I really do want your advice, Gentle Readers. Especially those of you who are members of that other species. This week Postmodernes Sprachspielen has been like a reverse-angle Ann Landers.

Of course, all the well-intentioned and helpful advice in the world couldn't have helped me last night when I discovered that, goddamn it, I still blush when I get embarassed and what the fuck is up with that when I haven't been fifteen for more than fifteen years?

Sheesh.

What happened was, I was in the suburbs with The Viking at this pub where they don't give you wooden spoons to take your order but they do hold a semi-annual karaoke contest which neither of us has a hope of winning, even though we're both pretty good, The Viking especially, but it's fun, and we're both karaoke sluts, so we go every time.

(Oh, come on, get over it, Gentle Reader, I told you The Viking and I are friends and, besides, I almost never feel like a dork anymore when he's around. Hardly ever. Really.)

When I arrive The Viking is sitting with another karaoke contestant we both know named John. John is writing something in Roman numerals on a request slip. I sit down on the other side of John, and hang my coat on the back of my chair. John shows us what he's written:

XXI-XII
and says, "This is the license plate of a car I pulled up behind yesterday."

"Who was in it, Alex Lifeson?"

"Don't tell me it was Neil Peart?"

The Viking and I say in unison.

"That's what I like about you guys," says John. "You get it, about music. Sometimes when I'm talking to my friends I get a lot of blank stares. None of them would have gotten the Rush reference." Then he sniffs, and says to me, "Did you just take that coat out of storage?"

"Yes, why?" And then I realize, it's because it smells like mothballs.

"Yeah, I can smell it over here," adds The Viking.

Laugh it up, fuzzball.

* * *

You can see now, can't you, why I prefer email conversations? Speaking of which, here are snippets from some recent ones I've had with my readers:

Blundering American, in explaining his species to me, says, "It's easy. Think about the easiest answer (answer that requires the least amount of thought) or the answer that we think will likely get us in the sack. Nine times out of ten, that's it. Don't overthink us."

I'd love to not only not overthink you, but not even think you, but the thing is, you guys don't give us much to go on, so all we can do is think on it. I think, anyway.

Operaman wrote to chat about Yorkshire pudding and says he was miffed by my assessment of men in their twenties: "I feel that I may have more than just the 'tall, maybe' going for me...luckily, I know you speak in generalizations here, and therefore I will cut you some slack."

See what good friends men in their twenties make?

In response to my poppadoms post Norm writes, "What do you call the flat, crunchy, sesame seed laced bread-cum-crackers that they serve with your meal in Indian restaurants?"

Me, I just call them those flat, crunchy, sesame seed thingies.

And finally, I had the nicest ever email from a reader named Andrew. No, not Andrew the bartender at The Banknote — this Andrew lives in Washington state. He wrote:

"There are two types of days, one where Postmodern Sass posts something new and one where she doesn't. I just wanted to let you know that the former is always better than latter."

There I go, blushing again.

* * *
Click here to sing the next chorus of Working For The Weekend.

It's Not Easy Being Green

So, if you were to get a phone call this morning from your FIHP at the ACC asking whether you'd like two tickets to the Baby Leafs home opener tonight, and you said "Sure!" because you love hockey, but then you think to yourself who do I know who (a) likes hockey and (2) might be available on short notice and (C) isn't, you know, married or something; and you decide, what the hell and you call an acquaintance who you think is hot but that's besides the point; the point is, you're pretty sure about (a), you don't know about (2) but it's possible, and as far as (C) goes, well, he actually is married but his wife hasn't been seen (nor mentioned) in eight months; and even though you swore you'd never do somethin' stupid again you call him and, since he's not home, you leave a message, and he calls back a couple of hours later while you're out (naturally) and leaves you a message saying he can't make it tonight because his brother is coming in from out of town and they have plans, then adds, and I quote, "Now's not a very good time; I'm pretty busy these days," but then adds, and again I quote, "But that's not to say that down the road isn't a possibility," should you take that as a sign of encouragement, and invite him to the real Leafs game against Boston in a couple of weeks, for which you also have tickets, or should you apply the lesson you learned last winter and take that as a hint that he's not interested?

* * *
In the next story, Postmodern Sass ponders some more on why her students do the things they do. Or, go here to learn what Sass learns about Boz from her friend Angela. And whether she invites him to that hockey game.

Another Brick In The Wall [part II]

This is Part VII (and the final segment) of the story of
Postmodern Sass Goes To The U.K.
It is continued from Part VI
To read the story from the beginning, click here.
To see pictures, click here.

---

Monday, July 4
5:00 p.m.
watching TV at the flat

I'm watching a quiz show called Never Mind the Buzzcocks. It's more of a comedy show, really. Two teams of three music industry people are competing in several rounds of games. In the game they're currently playing one team must perform, using only their voices and air instruments, a popular song, and the other team is to guess the song.

In another round a now aged former member of a minor rock band appears on stage in a lineup with several other men of similar countenance and condition, and the teams must guess which man is the real former rock star.

The dialogue between the host and the competitors is fast paced, clever, occasionally rude (by Canadian standards), and very, very, funny.

It is so good to be away from Americans and the constant bombardment of their culture.


Monday, July 4
8:00 p.m.
Foxes Den pub
down the road from the flat

Eating out in England is complicated.

HOW TO ORDER

Find yourself a vacant table

Make your choice from the menu found at the table

Place your order at the food order point, informing your server of the area you are sitting in.

Relax and enjoy your meal.

Drinks and puddings can be ordered through your server at the table.

They cannot, however, be ordered if the server has taken your wooden spoon away. The posted rules fail to explain that, in lieu of a receipt customers are given a wooden spoon with a number, which is to be placed in the cutlery vase at your chosen table so that your server can locate you.

Woe is the customer whose spoon has been removed by an over-eager server.


Tuesday, July 5
5:00 p.m.
King George VI pub

I'm fascinated with the food in England. Not because it tastes good (it doesn't) but because of the unusual names for dishes, and the strange customs of serving it. This evening I've ordered the Black Pudding and Bacon Stack, an appetizer, for £3.95, and I'm perusing the menu, and wondering what they mean by "parcel." To me, a parcel is a package you receive in the mail. To them, it has something to do with feta cheese and spinach. A feta, spinach and pepper parcel is listed as a main course. Underneath the price, the description explains it is a puff pastry parcel. There's also something called Chicken Korma, £7.25, served with rice, poppadoms, and minted dip.

THEY SAY: poppadoms
WE SAY: I have no idea

I heard earlier today on News Five that sales of Pink Floyd's records have soared 1300% since Saturday's Live 8 concert. Five also reports that Scottish soccer hooligans have descended upon Edinburgh, where they've been rioting all week in anticipation of the G8 summit, which starts tomorrow. Five showed pictures of a corral, built in a field outside the city, where the protesters are to herd themselves. They're expecting 15,000.

Denise and I are having a snack and waiting for Hutch, Dale, and Fiona, who is one of the research assistants at the university, to meet us here. We're going pub hopping in Bristol proper tonight.


Tuesday, July 5
7:00 p.m.
Shakespeare's Tavern
on the docks, Bristol

Hutch is telling us about the pirate tour of Bristol he took last year while he was here with his family. Before we stepped into this tavern he'd shown us the wall where they used to chain the pirates, so they'd drown as the tide rose. Apparently it was a well-attended public event.

THEY SAY: travellers
WE SAY: gypsies

Hutch has two teenagers, and can't understand why they didn't want to accompany him to Bristol again this year. Perhaps if you've ever been to Bristol, you'd understand. It's a nice enough town, don't get me wrong, but as tourist destinations go, well, there are more interesting places to be, especially when you're a 14 year old girl.

Those of us presently ensconced at this cosy plank table will never see 14 again, and I for one am enjoying the Shakespeare Tavern immensely. English Lit major that I once was, I felt compelled to drag the others into this particular pub, but I don't think they mind, since, as with all taverns in England, there's a fine selection of draught.


Tuesday, July 5
8:00 p.m.
The Ostrich Inn
other side of the Avon, Bristol

We'd wandered the docks for some time, looking for this place, because Hutch remembered it had a pirate's hole, and now that we're here, we're sitting right beside it. The hole is gated to prevent us from entering, not that I have any desire to crouch doubled over in a three foot high dark tunnel. The pirates made their way a quarter of a mile through this tunnel from their boats along the quay.

What they went through, just to get a beer.

THEY SAY: pudding
WE SAY: dessert

I decide to try the Giant Toad in the Hole (£5.95) because I'm curious to know whether it's what I remember eating as a child. It turns out to be a Yorkshire pudding — or so I'm told; I don't really know what that is, either — with fat pork sausages floating in onion gravy. Like all British food it is greasy and salty, and so appeals to my baser instincts.

I can always have an endive salad when I get home to Canada.

The dish bears no resemblance to the breakfast food we called a toad in the hole in Beamsville in the 1970s. That was a piece of bread with a hole ripped into the centre, which you butter on both sides and lay in a frying pan, then crack an egg into the hole. Toast and egg all in one.

I still make those for myself, from time to time.


Tuesday, July 5
9:00 p.m.
pub hopping, Bristol

At the Hole in the Wall pub we find a plaque telling us that Robert Louis Stephenson wrote Treasure Island here. There is indeed a hole in the wall, through which one can watch the docks through a spyglass.

THEY SAY: warehouse apartments
WE SAY: lofts

We walk along Merchant's Quay, which is dotted with pubs, many of which boast literary connections. The roads are cobblestone. The Llandoger Trow pub was established in 1664, and claims to have been Daniel Defoe's local. It's in the Welshback, an area of the docks so named because that's where the Welsh were forced to stay — back from the rest of the merchants. I gather their reputation as traders was not a good one, and that this is where the expression to welsh on a deal comes from.

I silently mourn the fact that I'm doing my PhD in marketing, rather than in English lit.


Wednesday, July 6
10:30 a.m.
Bristol Business School

Denise will be giving her presentation at the Doctoral Students' Symposium in a few minutes. I'm sitting outside the door to the conference room, on the floor, waiting for the student who's presenting on an evaluation of the benefits and risks in offshoring business processes in the financial services sector to India to finish.

Denise and Hutch sit patiently through all the other presentations, no matter how far removed the subject matter from their own interests. Me, I believe that there's only so much room in my brain for things to care about, and outsourcing financial services, whether to India or elsewhere, simply isn't one of them. Neither is Denise's topic, strategic human resources management, but I can make room in my brain to support a friend and colleague.

THEY SAY: toilet
WE SAY: bathroom

Among the other topics in today's symposium is mathematical formulas for calculating credit ratings for U.K. quoted companies. I'm sure that's very interesting to many people, I'm simply not one of them. Of the 53 students currently registered in the BBS PhD program, I am one of three working on a dissertation in marketing.

I wonder if I'm in the right school.

On Monday night at the King George Denise and I spent the first two beers discussing her topic, the next three on mine. She's farther along with her work; I needed one beer's more help.

I hear Denise's voice from inside the conference room asking a question of the India Outsourcing Guy. He must be almost finished.

The director of research informs us that London has won the bid for the 2012 Olympics. Toronto has given up trying.

I've been slotted in at the last minute to give an informal overview of my topic, over the lunch break. I hadn't planned to present, but over the last couple of days as I outlined the landscape over which my brainwaves were roaming, I sparked some interest in some of my colleagues. Considering my brain cell conservationist attitude I suppose I can't expect too many to attend.

After the symposium I'll walk Denise to the gatehouse where the airport taxi is picking her up. I'll be spending the last couple of nights alone in the flat.

Yeoman Dale is giving his presentation now, and I've gone inside to be supportive. He's one of my PhD buddies, after all, but his subject is accounting — I won't even bother to recite his thesis topic to you — you can imagine how interested I am in it. I read his presentation overview, though, and, well, I found it encouraging in one sense. If that level of writing will one day earn him a PhD, then I have nothing to worry about.

Still, I'm worried.

* * *
Postmodern Sass believes it is better to finish a story three months later than to not finish it at all, and she gently reminds you, Gentle Reader, that this blog has never pretended to be journalism. And then there's the fact that she's under a deadline to deliver 20,000 words to her thesis advisors this week, and is procrastinating In the next story, which isn't so much a story as a very long paragraph, Clueless Sass asks her readers for advice.

Underwhelmed

I'm underwhelmed if that's a word. I know it's not 'cause I looked it up.

Lately I've begun to suspect that I'm outgrowing the demographic of my favourite radio station, CFNY in Toronto, which these days goes by the more hipster appellation, "Edge 102."

It's the only station in Toronto, the only station in Canada, that plays great Canadian bands like Metric and Sloan. And it's the only station that plays bands like Offspring and The White Stripes and the Foo Fighters and Green Day and that promises its listeners that they will never, ever, under any circumstances, hear Elton John. That's why I am a devoted listener.

In fact, I've been listening to CFNY since I was in high school, when it was called "The Spirit of Radio," and Rush wrote a song about it. But what I've been hearing on Edge airwaves this week makes me feel that cringing embarassment which my friend Liz refers to as "fardo." It's that empathic sort of embarassment you feel for someone who is too clueless to realize that they themselves should be embarassed.

The morning show guys, a trio of late twenties/early thirties men who spend an inordinate amount of time discussing their penises, each other's penises, and other people's penises, in what appears to be a determined effort to appeal to as broad an audience of teenage boys as possible, this week announced a new contest: The Ultimate Cougar Hunt.

A cougar, for those of you, Gentle Readers, who live in civilized societies deprived of this particular vernacular tidbit, is an older woman who prowls for younger prey. It is meant to imply everything that that image connotes: a wild animal on the hunt, strong and masculine; not pretty. Dangerous, lacking sympathy for the vulnerable, and interested only in satisfying its own needs.

The contest proceeds thusly: Women over the age of thirty are encouraged with every changing D.J. shift to come to the radio station's "storefront studio" and make a one minute video in which they'll explain why they should be chosen as the ultimate cougar. The videos will be posted on the station's Web site, and listeners — teenage boys — can vote for their favourite.

For the first couple of days, no women deigned to enter. Then one afternoon last week, three days into the contest with no cougars in sight, I heard D.J. Dave "Bookie" Bookman explaining the contest and pleading with women, a woman, any woman, to come into the station right then and enter. To his immense credit, the discomfort in his voice as he did this was palpable.

The next morning the Moron Morning Guys did the same, but without any discomfort whatsoever. A woman did enter the studio, and Dean Blundell put her on air:

Dean: "Hi there. Come on up to the microphone and tell us your name."

Woman: "Roxy."

Dean: "Roxy! How old are you, Roxy?"

Roxy: "Thirty-seven."

Dean: "And are you single?"

Roxy: "I'm divorced."

Dean: "Whose fault was it? Did you dump him or did he dump you?"

Todd (Shapiro, the teenage sidekick in the morning show trio): "He cheated on you, didn't he? Come on, tell us."

Roxy: "No, it wasn't like that."

Dean: "Do you have any kids?"

Roxy: "I have a boy. He's six."

Todd: "Whoa! This is great! We've got our first MILF-slash-cougar!"

Dean: "That's just cougarific! So, tell us Roxy, what do you like in a younger man?"

Todd: "Yeah, what is it about younger men that makes you want to cougar them?"

Dean: "How young do you like 'em? Like, what's your minimum limit?"

That's when, out of respect for Roxy, I turned the radio off. That's right, I turned it off and drove the rest of the way to the university in silence. There are no other radio stations programmed into my car's radio, and I never scan for any, because I'm that much of a musical snob. I'd rather listen to nothing than chance hearing Hotel California.

Later, I checked the radio station's Web site for information about the contest. I guess I was hoping it had all been a bad joke. Then I read the Barry Interesting Survey, a cute, daily feature of afternoon D.J. Barry Taylor, which yesterday asked the question, "What do you think is most important to a cougar?" The selection of answers was, (a) cigarettes; (b) cocktails; (c) hair spray; (d) tight jeans.

Barry is 26, going on 13. He was barely born when Nirvana was playing bars in Seattle.

I do not want a man in his twenties.

I like a man who's smart and funny and tough and, if possible tall. And it doesn't hurt if he has sartorial savvy. Three out of five will get him my attention. Four, even better. Five, comes along rarely. I don't like guys who are prettier than I am, and I much prefer them to be older. When they're 25 all they've got going for them, maybe, is tall. The other four attributes come only with experience.

Oh, Jack?

Five out of five, plus bonus points for knowing how to dance.

And — hold the irony please — he's younger than me.

Grrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooowl!

* * *
While Postmodern Sass is deciding whether to give up on CFNY for good, she manages to finish, finally, the story of Postmodern Sass Goes To The U.K.

Mustang Sally

My friend Gord used to say to me, when I'd tell him about the latest quirkiness with my car, "That's what you get for driving a car that has to be fixed by a guy named Hans."

He's just jealous because I bought the car of both our dreams, a Volkswagen Corrado VR6, in 1993, when he was driving a four year old second-hand Passat.

He has a point, though; a point that is driven home to me every time something goes wrong with my car.

I pulled into the Sunoco station just off the highway in Oakville last night, coasting on fumes. I was on my way to the university where I teach a Tuesday night class from 7-10, and looking forward to the Cajun wings and pint of Beck's I'd have in front of me at The Banknote by 11:00.

I'd been to this gas station many times before, and this time was no different than all those other times, right up until when I couldn't open the hatch. You know, the little door that covers the gas cap?

Several times when I've been to full serve stations the attendant has knocked on my back window to indicate I am to "unlock" the hatch. I usually have to get out of my car so I can tell him, it's not locked, it's just that it opens the other way from what you're used to.

Volkswagens are like that in many ways.

So I'm standing there with my hands on my hips, staring at my rear quarter panel, considering what to do next, when a young man pulls up behind me in an SUV. He steps down and comes over to offer his help. He is wearing shorts and a golf shirt, which, though it is now October is seasonably appropriate in today's humid 28° weather.

"Did you pull the release?" he asks, pointing toward the driver's seat.

"There isn't one," I reply.

"Oh?" he asks in disbelief, "There usually is, to the left of the steering wheel..."

"Not in Volkswagens," I tell him gently. "I've had this car for twelve years."

You become intimately familiar with your car when you've had it that long. I can tell, just by the feel of her when we're driving, when something is not quite right. And I forgive her, out of respect for her age, for days like today.

I open the glove compartment and pull out a flathead screwdriver. You bet I'm prepared. I was a Girl Guide. There's also a small wrench in there, to tighten the windshield wipers when they loosen and flop during heavy wet snowfalls. And there are booster cables and an extra litre of 10W40 in the back.

I try, gently, to pry open the hatch with the screwdriver. It won't budge. It feels like it's locked, not stuck. So I think, maybe it's part of the electronic locking system that locks the doors and the trunk. So I lock, then unlock the doors, twice, and in between I try the gas tank hatch.

No luck.

"Try starting the engine. Maybe that will unlock it," says a second man, older, maybe fifty, but well dressed and driving a silver Mercedes.

"Good idea, thank you."

I try it. It doesn't work. The older gentleman is examining the inside of my trunk.

"There should be a manual release behind the door," he explains. "It should be behind the carpet, here. Do you mind?"

"Not at all. Thank you for your help."

"I know cars," he says. "I build cars."

I want to ask him why they build cars with so many electronic devices nowadays. My car is old; it still has an actual key, but it has power locks, power windows, a trip computer, and something called cruise control, which I have accidentally turned on twice in those twelve years, and both times it scared the crap out of me.

I have always resented the fact that Americans invented automatic transmission because they felt that women were too stupid to learn how to drive standard. I would not own an automatic if you gave it to me for free with a year's supply of gas.

I get emotional about my cars. It's something Jack and I have in common.

"That's odd," says Mercedes Man, "There is no manual release."

"That doesn't surprise me," I say.

Hans is on my cell phone's speed dial. In a moment I have him on the line. I tell him what's happened.

"Vell, the door is locked when you lock the doors. Are the doors working?"

"Yes," I tell him. I know exactly what he means.

"Lock the door, then unlock it, then."

"I already tried that, twice."

"Ah." He pauses. "You're going to have to bring it in."

"Well, that's going to be a bit of a problem," I reply.

"You're far away and you're running on empty?" Hans guesses immediately.

I am all too frequently running on empty these days.

"Vell, then, let's see how handy you are," says Hans, and he begins to explain to me how to find, under the carpeting inside the trunk, the cable that controls the vacuum locking device.

The carpet comes away easily, and I find the cable, but I'm having trouble understanding exactly what I'm supposed to do with it.

"What are you trying to do?" asks Mercedes Man, who has returned from paying for his gas. "Can I help?"

"I have my mechanic on the phone and he's trying to explain to me how to release the vacuum lock manually. Do you know how to do that?"

"I can probably figure it out. Let me talk to him."

I hand the phone over and let the man who's rummaging in my trunk, whose name I don't even know, talk to my mechanic, whom I've known for ten years.

SUV Guy finishes filling his tank, and comes over to check on our progress. We're beginning to draw a crowd.

"Uh huh. Yes, I see it. OK, got it," Mercedes Man is saying to Hans. He tries the hatch. It opens.

SUV Guy applauds. Mercedes Man says goodbye to Hans, then hands me the phone. I say goodbye, and thank you, to all three of them.

Last summer my friend Gord bought a shiny new Volkswagen Beetle. His boys are teenagers now; they go out with their friends. They don't travel in his back seat anymore, so Gord can drive a less practical car now. The car he wants to drive.

There are people like those two men at the gas station. And then there are people who, when gas prices jump 30¢/l overnight because of a hurricane, steal gas from other people's cars when their gas tank hatches aren't locked.

* * *
In the next story, Postmodern Sass learns a lesson in demographics and target markets, and mourns her favourite radio station. Next August, Postmodern Sass sings "Mustang Sally" again when she gets some bad news about her car.