The Complaint Department: Automobile Design, Yoga Pants and Lawn Care

A while back I read an article asking just what the hell is going on in this country when people are being shot for ringing the wrong doorbell, pulling into the wrong driveway or climbing into the wrong car…a mistake I’ve made twice in the past few years.

A mistake I believe says a lot less about me and my impending dementia than it does about automobile manufacturers and their current lack of creativity when it comes to designing cars.

In the Good Old Days when Men Were Men and Sheep Were Nervous you would never mistake a Cadillac for a Ford or a VW, but these days you can’t tell the Honda-Hyundai-Kia-Toyota-Nissans apart and to prove my point here’s an old Cadillac…

An old Ford…

An old VW…

And now a Hyundai…

A Toyota…

And a Nissan…

So if I climb into your white four-door sedan that looks exactly like every other white four-door sedan (including the one I own which is why I thought your car was mine) and you want to shoot somebody, don’t shoot me, shoot somebody that designs today’s cars and it’s time for me to change subjects before I start complaining about those new-fangled Model Ts, loud Rock ‘n’ Roll and women wearing pants in public.

And Now a Complaint About Women Wearing Pants In Public

There are certain products it should be much harder to buy, like guns and fireworks and certain colors of house paint and if you drop by Sherwin-Williams and want 15 gallons of purple paint they should refuse to sell you purple exterior paint because if you’re painting the outside of your house purple your neighbors will have to look at it and they might not be The Artist Formerly Named Prince fans.

Which reminds me of a Somewhat Related Story:

My mom’s house was green and she decided she wanted it repainted chocolate brown with crème trim and the guy doing the painting didn’t know jack shit about painting a house and the chocolate brown and crème paint over the green paint made the house look black with lime green trim so the first time I saw it I asked my mom when Satan had moved in and if our new street address was going to be 666.

Anyway…

As I was saying, some things should be difficult to buy and maybe you should have a note from your doctor and/or psychiatrist to make the purchase and I feel pretty much the same way about the best and (depending on the wearer and your point of view) possibly worst women’s clothing item ever:

Yoga pants.

Some women look great in them, but some women should never wear them and a clothing store clerk might suggest a local gym if a woman wants to put 20 pounds of sugar in a 10-pound sack, all of which sounds extremely sexist only because it is.

But I also feel the same way about men and Speedo swimsuits so if I’m being rude and insensitive to both men and women I can’t be a sexist, I’m just an asshole, which as far as I can tell is still socially acceptable because we elect so many of them to public office.

And just in case you need evidence…

The Political Correctness Police now frown on “body shaming” which I think is a screwed-up point of view because you’re not doing anybody any favors when you tell them they look terrific and don’t need to change a thing when what they’re doing is actually unhealthy and I can’t help but notice those same Political Correctness Police have absolutely no problem telling smokers they’re killing themselves while simultaneously encouraging obese people to eat another pint of Haagen-Dazs.

In any case…

A man should not be able to buy a Speedo swimsuit unless he’s a current member of an Olympic swim team because who needs to see a man wearing one of these unless there are Gold Medals at stake.

Also: I just remembered taking a walk and about half-a-block away walking in a different direction was a woman either:

A. Wearing pink yoga pants or…

B. Taking a walk through the neighborhood nude from the waist down.

See what I mean about bad yoga pants decisions?

If you’re going to buy yoga pants despite my warped opinions, stay away from flesh tones because you might cause a car wreck.

And while I’m giving Unrequested And Politically Incorrect Fashion Advice: men should not wear muscle shirts unless they have actual muscles.

Lawn Care Equipment  

There are men who are fascinated by tools and equipment (a fascination that escapes me because I associate “tools” and “equipment” with “work”) and there’s always that one guy who buys a snow blower and gets excited when the neighborhood gets hit by a Life-Threatening Blizzard because he’ll finally get to use the expensive piece of crap that’s been sitting in his garage for the last 11 months.

According to a website called “Lawnstarter” – an indication there are way too many blogs and mine might be one of them – a snow blower can cost as little as $62.29 or as much as $3,499 and for $3,499 I’d expect it to come with an 8-track tape deck, mag wheels and fuzzy dice for the rear view mirror.   

Anyway…

If you spend $3,499 on a snow blower there’s an excellent chance you really really look forward to using it and I think the same thing about people (and they’re usually “guy” people because women have more sense — unless they’re shopping for yoga pants) who buy a gun to protect their house and go to a range to practice shooting and then get excited when the Domino delivery guy rings the wrong doorbell or someone mistakenly climbs into their white four-door sedan.

Blizzards represent a chance to use a snow blower; strangers in the wrong place represent a chance to shoot somebody which every Over-Equipped Action Movie Fan is dying to do.   

And Now a Semi-related Story About Baseball and Lawn Care Equipment

When I was covering the Kansas City Royals there were certain people I’d talk to every chance I got because they knew a lot about baseball and made me smarter and one of my repeated victims was Royals coach, Rusty Kuntz.

Rusty had been around baseball forever and knew all kinds of interesting stuff you’d never even think about, like what number a coach should pick for his uniform and here’s the answer: coaches should pick a popular number and when it was available, Rusty would pick #18.

Here’s why:

If a Star Player comes to your team and wants the number you wear, Baseball Tradition demands that the Star Player give you a gift as a thank you for giving up your number and Rusty told me he was collecting lawn-care equipment and if memory serves, wanted a lawnmower, a leaf blower, a weed whacker and I think the fourth one was a snow blower – so A Man For All Lawn-Care Seasons – and as I recall Rusty had acquired three-out-of-four and if he got all four he would immediately be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (Lawn Care Division) and would make his acceptance speech while riding a John Deere lawnmower.

Summary

OK, once again I’ve run out of steam and if I lost some of you around the Yoga-Pant Curve, my bad, but holding an unpopular opinion doesn’t mean I’m wrong and I still hope you have a good Kinda, Sorta Fourth of July weekend and stay out of the heat and if you decide to mow your lawn anyway, for God’s sake don’t do it wearing a Speedo.