Auto Care Center Sign Descending Further Into Despair

First, the non-despairing part: comic strips over on my mathematics blog! Includes twice as many Carpe Diem comics as you might have guessed, if you knew that was a comic strip.

And the signs on that auto care place on the corner? After what I thought was its message board going through a long, slow breakup? Well, it spent a month appealing for food donations and there’s nothing to joke about regarding that. But I guess they got the food donations and now have gone to this:

No, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that the first letter in ‘WILL’ is a letter M hung upside-down. Why are you constantly asking about this? And there’s something going on with that ‘7’ but I have no idea what. I’m relieved it isn’t an upside-down ‘L’ is the important thing.

It would be a hopeful message of tranquility and future promise, yes, if it weren’t coming after the slow-bitter breakup message. And if it weren’t coming off a year that ranks favorably compared to 1945, when atomic bombs were used as weapons of war, or the peak years of the Taiping Rebellion or the Black Death, but not much else. I’m going in tomorrow and offer everyone there a hug.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The Another Blog, Meanwhile index rose four points after traders stopped in the pet shop and saw a baby guinea pig yawning. I’m surprised the index only went up four points after that. Have you even seen a baby Texel? And add to that one that’s yawning?

105

The Drama At The Auto Care Place

So there’s a new message from the auto care place at the corner. It had, when I started paying attention, begun with the faintly despairing “Everything Is Going To Be Alright”. And in the time since then it’s gone to “The Cost Is Zero To Be A Decent Human Being”, then “We Can’t Save Everyone But Everyone Can Save Someone”, and then “Whether You Think You Can Or You Can’t You’re Right”. And now they’ve got a new one up:

Yes, it reads like they’re explaining why they’re still having trouble getting the transmission to shift right on that 2006 Acura, but I’ve only ever had good service from the place. Admittedly what I’ve needed from them is help getting my license plate holder off so I can put on new registration tags because the bolts I use to hold the plate on somehow rust into unremovable chunks every year. I have no explanation for this. They think they’ve got non-rusting bolts for the plate now.

I have to go back to my hypothesis that the message board is having a very slow, very bitter breakup with someone and is now trying to explain how it’s basically got its stuff together even if it’s screwing up on the little things. I worry that it isn’t going well. While it’s ordinarily admirable to admit when you made a mistake, especially one that set off a terrible fight, admitting it comes across rhetorically as the first step to declaring the mistakes don’t matter. It’s hard to own up to fumbling once the emotional shooting has got really going.

So in short, please read some talk about comic strips over on my mathematics blog. Thank you.

Waiting On The Auto Repair Sign

You might remember there’s an auto repair place down the street. I mean my street. I don’t know what’s down yours, and before you get all smug about that when’s the last time you checked yourself, mmm?

Last winter the auto repair place used its sign board to deliver a message of despairing optimism, that “Everything Is Going To Be Alright”. I think the tone came out wrong, but maybe I’m just seeing ambiguity where they didn’t intend it. They change it every couple months. Right after that was congratulations to somebody graduating and there’s no snarking on that. I forget what they went to after that one.

I hadn’t even despaired before I saw this.

This winter they had “The Cost Is Zero To Be A Decent Human Being”. And this is a beautifully balanced message. It’s a reminder that the kind, gracious society, the one in which all people receive the dignity and decency that they need to thrive, is always at hand. It requires only that we each take a moment to remember the basic humanity of those around us, and that the cost of respecting that humanity is smaller than we fear. And on the other hand, it’s the perfect thing to yell in the quarrel that finally incinerates the corpse of a deceased friendship. “The cost is zero to be a decent human being, Lisa, and somehow that’s too much for you!”

Yesterday I noticed they had the ladder out, and they took down the reminder about the cost to be a decent human being. They haven’t put a new message up yet. But I’m eager to see what there is.

Words From The Auto Repair Sign

I hadn’t even despaired before I saw this.

I never need a hug so urgently as I do after driving past this auto care store’s sign.