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September 7, 2007
A Raging River of Molten Cheese
The other day I heard that song "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers, which reminded me that I used to own whatever album it's on. (I got rid of the album because I’m not all that interested in guys who want to be Bruce Springsteen. I mean, I love the boss, but that’s because he’s him, not because he’s part of some larger musical movement.) That reminded me of Eve, this woman I knew and was sort of friends with in grad school until she dropped out to drive a school bus, because she's who gave me the album. And that reminded me how after she got tired of getting up before 5 a.m. five days a week so she could drive a bunch of eight-year-olds to school, she decided to move to Wyoming or someplace cool out west to become a forest ranger, but before she left, she had a going away party at which she divested herself of stuff she didn't feel like schlepping the better part of a thousand miles, including a few mediocre pop albums. And that reminded me of the time we had coffee a few years earlier and I was complaining about all this damage my car got in this really horrible hailstorm--there were huge, horrid pock marks all over that thing. "Oh! I loved that hailstorm!" Eve said. "It was dramatic and scary, and it put money in my pocket!"
See, Eve had thought to call her insurance company after the storm and report the damage to her car. She got close to two thousand bucks out of the business, and because the damage was merely cosmetic and her car was a piece of crap, she didn't bother to have anything repaired, just kept the cash.
And that reminded me of how I called my insurance company and did the very same thing. But first I had to talk to this stupid young woman who knew what I was going to do and didn't approve, and tried to make sure I actually took my car to a body shop and spent the $1002.50 (I remember that amount because it was a thousand bucks, plus the cost of a decent latte, which I wanted to buy for Eve because after all, she was a big reason I got the other thousand) getting the dents hammered out of my doors and hood and roof. "I just want the money so I can deal with this myself," I told the stupid young woman.
"But really, it's no problem to send a payment to a body shop and get the work done for you," she said. "Let me just find a body shop we work with." There was a pause, and then she said, "How close are you to...to...to Cheddar Rapids?"
"I am no where near a raging river of molten cheese," I said. "However, I'm only 30 miles or so from Cedar Rapids. But it really doesn't matter because I just want the cash. I can take care of this myself."
So that's how hearing a Wallflowers song reminded me of a raging river of molten cheese, which I sort of wish really did exist because it would be a sight worth seeing, and a funky way to make cheese fries.
Posted by holly at September 7, 2007 10:26 AM
You could probably find that river in Wisconsin.
I'm not sure I'd take a dip in that river but the fries is a pretty great idea!