A Life More Ordinary

Every now again Life in general just gets me down, like each day is exactly like the one before and the ones to come, that I'm stuck in one hell of a deep rut. But just as Life occasionally deals me lemons, it also has been known to make me lemonade. My favorite comparison is something I heard from a standup comic recently: Whenever I start feeling down and depressed, I just go to Walmart and my problems pale in comparison and suddenly I feel much better about myself. It wasn't a trip to Walmart that made me realize that life isn't all that bad, though I find the occasional Walmart shopping experience, which I've lovingly dubbed "Shopping with the Lowest Common Denominator," good for the soul if only for shits and giggles. The super-sized glass of Life's lemonade that snapped me out of my rut-oriented tunnelvision occured this past weekend at, of all places, a car dealership.

My friend Greg had recently won some money and qualified to be entered into a contest for which the prize was a new Honda (turns out it was for a two year lease on a new Honda). The contest was conducted by the local adult oriented rock radio station. I try not to listen to this particular station for a number of reasons. For Christmas my wife gave me a shower radio, which for someone like me who loves listening to music, it was a great gift. The first month I had the radio I could only pick up this local radio station. It didn't take long to realize that they were playing the same songs at the same time each morning, and the talk-show portion with the three DJs of the morning show was nothing but innane banter. Stuff like, "My wife made me pancakes this past weekend and I swear one of them had the image of Mother Theresa on it!" or "I tried those new barbeque potato chips you were talking about the other day...." I listen to the radio to be entertained, not to be subjected to a proctal exam sent through the airwaves. Radio Abu Ghraib was broadcast directly into my shower each morning. Actually, a shock to the shammies would've been preferable to these idiots. It wasn't long before I settled for listening to a very staticky ESPN radio on the AM dial. But once I moved the radio closer to the plumbing, where in theory the pipes could act like an antenna, I was getting better stations out of Atlanta.

So a couple of Saturdays ago I accompanied my friend Greg to the grand finale of the contest at the Honda dealership, which we thought would be at 11 in the morning. Turns out that contest participants could start registering at 11 and the contest would start about 1 in the afternoon. We get to the registration table where I recognize the guy who greets us by his voice, the same one I heard on the radio attempting to turn everyday mundane occurrences into something palatable by the masses. He struck me as the kind of guy who sits on his couch for hours on end eating nachos and watching his Full House season one boxset because Marykate and Ashley were so much cooler before they turned eighteen and sold out.

With some time to kill, Greg and I head off to Toys R Us to get a present because his daughter's first birthday party is that afternoon at 2, so knowing the contest doesn't start until 1 is a bit of a concern for us. From there we headed off to the Toyota dealership as he wanted to look at trucks and I wanted to see if any Prius' were in stock (of course, there were none to be found). We returned to the Honda dealership for the contest about 12:30, by which time quite a few people had shown up and many of them were hoarding the free pizza and drinks that were available. On hand to gorge themselves were Mama Bear and Papa Bear on their motorcycle, and a woman so wide that I seriously doubt she’d fit into anything Honda makes.

To kill a little time Greg and I start looking at the Honda Odysseys that were in stock. We hadn't been looking very long when one of the salesmen comes out and starts his sales pitch. It occurred to both Greg and myself rather quickly that this guy is trying to sell US a car, thinking that we were a couple. I thought it was funny but Greg was not amused and made a comment to the extent that we both had wives. After a few minutes of telling this guy that we were only looking and there for the contest and not to buy a van, he finally concluded we were not there to buy a van and gave us his business card just in case we were interested in the future (but not as a couple).

One o'clock rolled around, and after half an hour of standing outside in the hot sun in an asphault parking lot, the roughly one hundred and fifty people who were there, contestants and supporters, were all herded inside the dealership for the grand finale. Everyone gets settled in and the Marykate and Ashley fan radio host starts off things with a few token announcements. Then, to make sure that the contest drags out even longer, they announce that the contest finalists will be chosen by reverse elimination, in other words they will draw numbers eliminating participants until they're down to ten. They start calling out numbers. With each number that's drawn there's a uniform "Awwww" by most of the crowd; my friend Greg and I don't participate because we don't care and want his number chosen as we're really pushing the 2 pm start time for his daughter's birthday party.

With each number that's drawn, I'm looking around the crowd to see who's the next person to have their hopes and dreams crushed. And as I looked around at the hopeful expressions on faces framed by dirty t-shirts and missing teeth, it occurred to me that this same crowd looked like Walmart's target audience: not much money, not many functional synapses, people who would enjoy the strange female "greeter" at the eastside store in town who always seems to be singing whenever I have to go there. The Good Life is just one winning lottery ticket away.

For one unlucky woman, the Good Life was not to be found on this day. Her number was called and she quietly passed by me on her way out, her bottom lip quivering as she tried not to cry. I was immediately taken by how empty one’s life must be when the End-All Beat-All of your existence is winning a two year lease on a Honda. All of my cares and concerns would not, could not, approach anything many of these people would experience. And I felt much better at the realization.

It took about ten minutes of number calling before my friend’s was called. “Yes!” he cried to the befuddled look of the remaining contestants. “Shouldn’t that be, ‘Awww’?” queried our third-rate radio DJ host and MC. “Oh, um, yeah...awwww,” my friend replied.

“Alright, back to our lives,” I chimed in, and we walked out the front door. But before we left we grabbed some free pizza and drinks; our tshirts, after all, had been clean long enough for that crowd.