Tires and soaps and doctors

I went to get new tires for my van on Friday and ended up spending close to five hours in the auto shop. It turns out there were many more things wrong with my van than it just needing new tires. What kinds of things? I have no idea, because when the nice man came over to sit down and tell me the bad news, all I heard was blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah. I tried hard to feign interest. While he was rambling on and on, I was only thinking about how I wished he would just stop talking so I could tell him to call my husband, who happens to find car talk much more satisfying than I do.

As it turns out, being there for as long as I was proved to delightful. I got to catch up on my daytime soaps, which I haven't watched in more than two decades. Rest assured, people are still sleeping with people they shouldn't be sleeping with and babies are still being born to mothers who have kept the pregnancy hidden from even the closest of friends, and no one is really sure who the father is, but it certainly is not the man living with the mother of the baby. Unfortunately no one came back to life while I was watching. That was sad for me as I always love to see a person come back to life after having died in something like a fiery plane crash. It gives me hope that if I ever die like that I may somehow come back to life.

On top of watching disturbingly good looking people overact, I got to watch the Dr. Oz show. Do you know who he is? He's that hopelessly hairy doctor Oprah forced on us several years ago. He likes to talk about bowel movements. Not only does he like to talk about them, he encourages you to go look at yours and discuss it with your doctor. It's all so interesting and educational. He also does programs in which he lovingly spreads fear into our lives by stating, with one hundred percent accuracy, that apple juice contains dangerous levels of arsenic. Hearing that kind of news doesn't bother me though, as I only allow my kids to drink beverages containing alcohol.

On Friday, Dr.Oz was talking about how to lose weight successfully and keep it off. It was almost like I was destined to have something horrible happen to my car, just so I could be present to see this show. Dr. Oz conducted an experiment on this particular episode in which he allowed three women who were on diets the luxury of cheating for one day. They actually received, at their front door, a box in which Dr Oz left a note telling them he was allowing them to cheat. (Knowing his love of all things poop I really was worried that when they opened the box it would contain fecal matter.) Anyway, as you can imagine, getting permission from the one and only Dr. Oz to go ahead and cheat on their diets was thrilling for the women.

The next segment showed said ladies indulging in levels of gluttony that proved to be so disgusting that I promised myself whenever I was about to be a glutton, which is typically everyday between noon and five PM, I would think of these women. The only thing worse than seeing them eat like this was that Dr Oz. kept calling their cheat day, "Faturday." He assured them that they would be allowed to cheat once a week ( that's where his clever name of Faturday came from) , but he was going to show them how to do it properly. See, he really does have all the answers! He used the word Faturday so much and I was so repulsed by it that I am thinking of crossing out all the days of the week on my calendar and calling everyday Faturday, as I truly believe it may make me want to spot eating forever.

Long story short I was so bored and annoyed with Dr. Oz that I went outside and walked up and down Route 19 for several minutes and contemplated throwing myself into traffic just so I would never again have to hear or see the hairy beast that is Dr. Oz. Then I reminded myself that life is not a soap opera and if I did get struck by a car and die I may truly be dead forever, so I went back in and sat down and read The Orlando Sentinel. That just made me want to go run back out into traffic again. Really, how hard can it be to publish a well written and interesting newspaper? Apparently very hard. I am much too tired to complain any further so I'm just going to shut up for now. Happy Faturday!