Bench Whore Man Frog

"Things had turned around, and now it was the palefaces who were being taken in with beads and trinkets."
-Charles Portis

Auggie the irreproachable is lately warming to recreational profanity. Perhaps his resolve has weakened with repeated exposure to my shamelessly degenerate cussing. I, MJ, created the infamous practice of Recreational Profanity and Huck and I practice it religiously. We are novices, though, when compared to AJ, who is the master of profane whippings (see "Three Kickass Females IM"). Auggie, who has held back, perhaps grasping for some sort of moral grounding in a family gone awry, has been timidly gathering momentum in the art of vurgarity. He has taken to saying "hell!" occasionally, which we always reward with hearty slaps on the back. Today was a day of note, however. Auggie graduated from simple adolescent blaspheming to genuine creative recreational profanity. Today he happily called me a Bench Whore Man Frog.

Hunched over my computer, I was studiously comparing invoice prices of a 2005 Honda Civic on Autobytel, cars.com, Kelly Blue Book and Edmunds.com while simultaneously debating in my head whether it was a good idea to subtract 2-3% of the MSRP from the invoice price when I make an offer because of dealer holdbacks. What about dealer incentives, destination charges, tax, factory to dealer incentives, estimated market price and should I deal with a fleet manager? Not to mention base prices, wholesale, LOANS! , auto safety, credit reports, interest rates and what about moon roofs?

What is the difference between a moon roof and a sun roof? It was dizzying.

Once, when I bought my first car, I was so rattled and out of my element at the dealership that I walked out in the night air to catch my breath and fell off a curb. Flat on my stomach. I exhaled a loud grunt, hitting hard in the silent parking lot, which was lit-up like a football field. Trying to be nonchalant, I quickly clambered to my feet, hoping no one inside that huge plate glass building noticed. I jolted in shock around the car lot for a couple of minutes trying to collect myself, and headed back inside, trying to summon some acting tips from all those Meryl Streep movies that might give me some semblance of dignity.

Inside, all of the salespeople compassionately diverted their eyes as I hurried, like a prisoner of war, to the office where I would put my hand to paper and sell my soul. Steven, unaware of my predicament and typically unattuned to my distress signals, was confidently bantering with the salesman, and as I sat beside him, I noticed that my jeans were torn, gaping open across my knee. Blood and pebbles were imbedded in the scraped and torn skin. I tried to pull my long wool coat over my leg, but it fell away as I reached for the clipboard. It was my time to sign. Through my panic I felt the humiliation of a high interest rate and felt the inherent condescension of being at a car dealership and felt the stinging and raw burning of my knee and hands.

Car dealerships are like the government - totally male and totally clueless. Why don't they just reveal the big price secrets so they don't have such an unfair advantage that pisses everybody off? Their secrecy about pricing creates distrust. Why don't they hire more women?

I take the pen and notice that my stiff fingers are scraped and bleeding. I inconspicuously wipe my hand on my lap, but smudges of blood appear on the paper as I sign the highlighted places. Feeling like I've been in a car wreck, I laugh manically and pass the clipboard back to Steven, who looks at me quizzically.

A few minutes later my new car with the manual transmission jerks violently into the street. I am shocked and horrified by the color, which looked so different in the brochure. I drive home in a daze, unaware of the streets or of turning, or of time.

At that time in my life I didn't have the joy of recreational profanity as a balancing influence. I was trying hard to be a competent and participatory citizen in our great capitalist democracy. Now I turn away. Now I open my coat. Now I watch you twist and turn, saying you can't sell the car for that price, that you paid more for the car than what I offered, and I watch you as you watch me participate in my own oppression and attach myself to that trinket that you control.

You fucking asshole.