Brains in retrograde

‘Kay, let me just get this out in the open: I am such an idiot.

I spent yesterday morning at Swedish Auto Factory, getting yet another radio antenna mast installed on my car. It’s the sixth or seventh in less than two years.

That’s because there’s one of those overhead storage bins in my tiny garage into which I have to back the car. (It’s a challenge reversing into it; but it’s much worse backing out of it, because of the way the parking lot has been, uh, designed.) The very first time I tried it I just wasn’t thinking that the hatchback was going to go under the overhang—the hatchback with the antenna up because the radio was on.

So even before I moved in, I had to replace the mast.

I was fine for a while & then one day I wasn’t thinking (again—that seems to happen to me a lot), forgot to turn off the radio/lower the mast, & bam; another antenna.

& like that.

The last time (before this) was just a couple of weeks ago, because I had the music on really low volume & completely blanked out.

Well, I called SAF & got the owner. “Dan? It’s [Bas Bleu]. I need a new antenna. Um.”

Dan: “Again?”

I told him I was just going to put SAF on direct deposit & book a standing appointment.

This time it wasn’t entirely my fault. Well, okay, it was—I was driving. But I did turn off the radio; I did. Only I didn’t check whether the mast had actually gone down. (It’s getting a little finicky because the car’s going on for 12 years old.)

So yes, another one bit the dust. Crap.

Someone told me that this may be happening because Mercury is in Retrograde. I don’t know who this Mercury guy is, or where Retrograde can be found (somewhere in Serbia?), or how he’s making me lose the plot. But if I ever come across him, I’m going to give him such a pop that will knock him clear out of the Balkens & make him wish he’d stayed wherever he was supposed to be.

Then I’m going to run him over & ram an antenna up his lower gastrointestinal system so far that he’ll be getting reception from his larynx.

I finally tacked up a couple of reminders on the storage bin; hoping that I’ll actually notice them & think about what I’m doing:

Meanwhile, back at SAF, where I swear I’m now getting a substantial discount on both parts & labor because of the whole economies-of-scale thing, when I collected my key yesterday & promised yet again that I wasn’t going to do this anymore, Dan said, “I’ll pray for you.”

I suggested he direct any such prayers to Saint Jude.

Unless there’s a patron saint specifically for idiots.