Phthursday Musings: Milestones & Innovations

An important household milestone was achieved this week. I want you all to see it for yourself:

If you didn’t watch the video (shame, shame) or you did but are craving the details:

Our 2013 Prius reached 100,000 miles on Monday morning. And I was ready, because I arrived home late Sunday night at 99,999.

I left my wife a text message warning her not to just leave in the morning. She saw it Monday morning, came and got me, and I sprung into action.

Yes, what you see in the video did occur at 7:00 on a Monday morning. Yes, I did haul our intrigued child into the car to join the celebration.

Now, one astute observer understood all of this completely, declaring it to have been “an entirely reasonable undertaking”. But, maybe, you, fair reader, are unconvinced.

Let’s talk about my dad’s 1985 Plymouth Horizon. I have no photo of it immediately available, but it looked like this:

I don’t remember the date. But some nice day, maybe in 1990 or 1991, the Horizon was at 99,999. My dad was driving. I don’t remember why, but my friend Clint and I were in the car. We were on Westfield Road.

My dad had us get out; he put the car into neutral; and he had us push the car to 100,000.

And, yes, this was an entirely reasonable undertaking.

No, our car is not a living being. It does not feel. But it does have soul. Our soul.

When you take care of a car, it takes care of you. By which I mean, when you take care of a car, you take care of yourself. Same logic applies to a house. And could conceptually apply to a great many other things. But mostly car and house. You live in your house. Your family exploits usually involve your car. Don’t have a car? Well, maybe it’s the El. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

Places matter, things matter, because they carry the souls of the living creatures who inhabit and use them. Oh, if you don’t like soul, you can use essence or spirit or whatever word moves you. The freaking word you choose isn’t the point! This is META-SPIEL, surely you knew that!

And, you know what, car memories should be fun ones. Not when the radiator died, not when we hit the deer, and darn it, not when we ran out of gas 13 years ago I’m sorry yes okay ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND MILES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now this is going to sound like it’s unrelated but here is where I’m going to rip on all of the high and mighty people who complain about kids getting participation trophies:

The function of the participation trophy is not that everyone does or should earn a trophy. The function is that everyone has a trophy, a positive reminder of a shared experience.

We all should embrace shared experiences. Especially with our loved ones. Oh, I’ll have more to write about shared experiences ver ver soon.

So I have this recurring problem: I get kale so as to put in the morning smoothies, but then I forget that it is there.

Today my wife asked about the kale and I was all GEE WILLIKERS!

But then I had an epiphany. The most outlandish, outside the box of ideas:

What if I put the kale in the same drawer as the oranges?

This, of course, is a jarring disturbance to the natural order. One drawer for fruit, one drawer for vegetables. Apples to the right. Peppers to the left. Vegetable-like foods - mushrooms, the fruits-you-treat-like-vegetables like tomatoes - to the left.

But kale… to the right? A dark leafy green, hanging with the McIntoshes and, season permitting, peaches? Who would do such a thing???

Well… I would. I would do that. I will be that guy. I will break the mold. No need to ask what would happen if you accepted the Queen’s gambit. No need to wonder what would have happened had Tarkenton thrown the ball with his left hand. Together, friends, we are entering that brave new world.

I told my wife we could put the kale in the fruit drawer, and her response, I believe, was: Uh, okay.

She didn’t let on, but she was definitely feeling the power of innovations. Just as she felt the power of milestones.

Milestones also make for useful goals. This is the point where I was going to rattle off all kinds of silly milestone goals I have or might yet set. And this is also where my mind has gone totally blank, and about the only thing I can think to mention is my ridiculous quest to reach 100 gold gym badges in Pokémon Go.

I feel like there must have been a lot of these when I was a kid, and most of them probably involved video games, which probably meant TI 99/4A games, and for the life of me I can’t think of a single relevant milestone from any of those games. It’s not like I was going to sit down and keep playing until I beat Hunt the Wumpus 1,000 times…. right?

Incidentally, the best way to play was always in German. I mean, who wouldn’t have great fun playing WUMPUS JAGD?

and I would drive 50,000 miles

and I would drive 50,000 more

just to be with you in the car when it hit 100,000 miles

which it had not done heretofore

Kind of obligated now, eh:

Did you all realize that The Proclaimers were still an active band, having released 13 albums, the most recent with the provocative name Angry Cyclist? I did not.