The Pale Blue Egg

In my family, we call it a birthday month. For some, it starts on the first day of the month of our birthday, like my mom whose birthday is the last day of June. For others, like me and my sister, it starts a full calendar month beforehand. Our birthdays are in the first weeks of our months. It simply wouldn’t be fair otherwise.  We have a groupchat where we say goodnight every night. My dad started it with my sister and me and my grandma after my grandpa died. My mom found out about it months later and demanded to be added. But it’s like she doesn’t get the rules all the way. She was on a stretch for a while where she sent a buck-tooth glasses-wearing emoji every night, while we were all sending “Goodnight, I love you”’s. It was almost like she was protesting being left out. Which is fair. But it’s been three years. In the groupchat, we are expected to keep an eye out for impending birthdays and wish the special person a happy birthday month, week, and day. On the day, we ca...

It ended up taking five hours. I had an appointment and everything. It turned out that a two hour appointment window meant that I could show up and they would get to it when they got to it. This is also how it works without an appointment. The receptionist told me this like she knew I was about to yell at her. I vowed, consciously, to prove myself a good girl.  I chose Midas because when I googled “cheap oil change near me,” I got an ad for a $17.76 oil change. I knew that they would tell me what they always tell me: I need the expensive oil. I always cave and then promise myself that I will find out later if they are lying to me. I think sometimes they take advantage of me and the way I spill my guts about knowing nothing about cars. I make myself a target. I cannot help it. My strategy at an auto shop is to just say, hey I don’t know shit about shit, can you please do what you think you should do, and I’ll trust you and pay you whatever you tell me to? Not today. Today, my ...