Don't You Have a Husband or Boyfriend Who Takes Care of Your Car?

Is that something husbands and boyfriends do these days? Oh...

I interrupt our regularly scheduled extremely serious blogging to bring you a funny (I hope) story from this morning’s Single in West Philly episode.

This morning I went out to start my car and it didn’t. So I called AAA.

A nice fellow promptly appeared and checked my battery. Long story but the car is at the dealership now. The alternator and battery are both under warranty so I’m not too worried.

As he was checking my battery, the nice fellow, whose name was Kevin, asked, “Don’t you have a husband or boyfriend who takes care of your car?”

My first thought was, “Is that something husbands and boyfriends are supposed to do these days?” Sorta like (not really a Rise of Skywalker spoiler) when Finn says, “They fly now?” because the Stormtroopers are now flying on speeders and Poe says, “They fly now.” Now, this might have been a mistake on the part of the screenwriters because Stormtroopers flew on speeders in Return of the Jedi - everyone knows that. But I digress.

I told Kevin that no, I have neither husband nor boyfriend and even if I did it would probably be the kind of person who is useless with cars.

I later found out that one of my former boyfriends does in fact know how to fix cars, so I hereby apologize to both all of my ex boyfriends and anyone else who is the kind of person I might have dated but didn’t if they can fix cars. I underestimated you.

It was only about a half hour later that I realized that Kevin was inquiring to figure out if I was single, which is really quite flattering as I imagine that Kevin is a good fifteen if not twenty years younger than I am and has a very good job.

This was confirmed when I texted the story to a male friend who immediately wrote, “He was trying to find out if you’re single.”

It was also confirmed when Kevin said, “I’m around until four so if you get bored call and I’ll come back.”

I didn’t actually get it then either. I thought he was just being nice.

I am really clueless when it comes to figuring out that a guy is coming on to me, and there’s a good reason for that. I spent my young life as the Queen of the Nerds, beginning with nerd camp, aka Duke’s Talent Identification Program (TIP), the summer after seventh grade. It was a camp for kids who had scored over a certain number on the SAT in seventh grade. TIP and all such camps were a wonderful experience for smart kids to be around our own kind, some of us for the first time. I followed it up with going to a magnet public school for smart kids (more nerds), Interlochen Arts Academy (artsy kids and I dated the musicians) and the pinnacle of Nerdland, Yale in the 1990’s.

The key to dating the smart boys is you don’t wait around for them to space in, or else you’ll be waiting a long, long time, perhaps until they’re grown up. You just walk right up to them and make a move. Now I know it goes against all of The Rules (a book I love) and a certain amount of evolutionary programming, but it works. Having gotten into that habit, even after years of all of us being grown up and having cars (one of which is at the dealership right now and they still haven’t called, but it’s under warranty, so it’s cool, right?), I still am not quite clued in on the wavelength of the woman who floats gracefully around the room waiting for a gentleman to ask her to dance.

Now I do clue in to really straightforward lines like, “Are you married?” Unless I am at my accountant’s and he’s wondering how I’ll be filing my taxes this year, this question is pretty obvious. There are a limited number of reasons why someone might be asking.

— You’re at the hospital and they want to know who is next of kin in case of your imminent demise.

— Your best friend wants you to be in her wedding and wants to know if you will be the Maid or Matron of Honor (wait, shouldn’t your best friend know if you’re married? Not if she’s as busy as my girlfriends are…)

— Anything having to do with estate planning, which is not too big a deal for me as my estate consists almost entirely of a collection of handmade Jersey City jewelry and a 2004 Subaru named Vicenya after the warrior queen sister of Aegon in GoT that is now at the dealership and whose book value is $500, so I probably couldn’t even give her to a husband if I had one.

— You’ve ridden in a time machine to the 1940’s and they only allow you to stay in a hotel with a person of the opposite sex (putting that as one would have in 1940) if you’re married

Okay, I’m running out of reasons. Suffice it to say, I get, “Are you married?” unless it occurs under one of the aforementioned scenarios.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the really gross come one lines, dick picks and off color jokes that make me want to go back in that time machine to the 1940’s, at least for the purposes of dating.

Anything in between is lost on me.

What is not lost on me is the fact that the dealership has not called and I don’t know what’s up with my car. I’m guessing she is not top priority today as they have suburbanites who can’t function for a day without their precious automobiles biting at the service desk begging for their cars back and they know I’m just fine and didn’t have an appointment. Still, I’d like to know.

Do you think it’s overly aggressive to call?

This was me in seventh grade. The person in the middle is Jonas Salk, yes, that Jonas Salk. He spoke at the Duke TIP award ceremony. The kid on the other side of Salk was the winner of the highest SAT score in North Carolina award. He was annoying. I did not ask him to dance.