Two weeks ago I went to an outlet mall. Urk.
That in itself is hard to believe, but the actual place is even stranger: virtually deserted and arranged like a little village of storefronts, the Santa Fe outlets make you feel like you’ve made a really big mistake, but you aren’t sure what it is. I bought a pair of boat shoes. You know, mocassins. Eastern Shore shoes, sockless wonders. The last pair I had lasted 10 years. When I got back home with them, I felt like I’d made a really big mistake, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
The shoes felt fine at first but were a little wider than I usually get. I hadn’t cared much at the store, because of the “40% off” sale. (There’s always a “40% off” sale, but I’m such a cultural idiot these days.) Back home though, it grated on me. Just a little too wide. Cheap. Too wide. Cheap. Why buy? CHEAP! They had to go back. Another 140-mile round trip.
Today was the day. I went to check the oil of the ’89 Dodge Spirit my wife inherited from her mother. it’s an ugly, wheezy, agricultural little blob of a car that drives like a cheap sofa on soccer balls, but it has armrests, cruise control, and gets 30 miles per gallon. Nice, but this morning the hood was stuck. I pounded and pried, but nothing budged. Would I take us both on a 140-mile round trip to a Twilight Zone outlet mall to return a silly pair of shoes in a 17-year-old car with a stuck hood? Apparently so. The thought of popping the hood with a tire tool if we broke down was entertaining anyway, so off we went.
There isn’t any punch line to this narrative, except it was a beautiful, utterly cloudless 68-degree day, and everything went like clockwork. I didn’t get hassled about the shoes and even tried on a few other pairs without buying a thing, which was deeply satisfying. We didn’t go anywhere else in Santa Fe and just headed right back, stopping in Española for late lunch at Matilda’s Cafe. I ordered the enchilada plate because it came with sopaipillas. We ate those up and Matilda asked us if we wanted more! I never heard of seconds on sopaipillas, but maybe I’ve just never thought to ask. On the way out of town, I spied a great Cadillac lowrider.
The drive back up the canyon and out over the mesa to all the familiar mountains was what you’d call spacey, just empty and peaceful, with hardly any traffic and plenty of sun. Back at the house, I took my time squirting WD-40 through the busted grille slats into the grunge-covered darkness where the hood latch lived. I pounded on the hood with a rubber hammer, then sprayed some more. Then, and only then, did I pull one more time on the release handle under the dash, and the hood popped loose. Hah!
This may all sound quite mundane. It is mundane, I guess, except for cliffs, canyons, snow-capped mountains, blue sky, the Rio Grande, Matilda’s enchiladas, and a beautiful woman like nobody else. Plus, I salvaged my honor and unstuck the hood.
The day’s a fucking triumph, as far as I’m concerned.
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RIGHT ON !!