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Behind the Wheel of Life

Posted on: September 25th, 2011 by Lola Locke No Comments

I am proud to announce that last week, at the tender age of 23, I drove a car for the first time by myself. And let me tell you my friends, driving yourself places is awesome.

Now, all you oldsters, and probably some youngsters, may be wondering why I waited till the seemingly senior age of 23 to try controlling one of these metal beasts. I’ll get to that. The first thing people ask is, “did you just get your license?” No. I’ve had my license since I was 16 and it has been fully functional the whole time. I simply had to wait an entire seven years to get behind the wheel.

Don’t get me wrong, I have driven before; That is IF you consider driving with my mother in the passenger seat pushing her foot on an imaginary brake pedal and clutching the door’s arm rest for dear life AND only if you consider participating in this spectacle once every six months actually driving. I think the reason why I haven’t driven by myself is pretty obvious here.

Hot guy and a car

I couldn't find a picture of someone freaking out in a car so I figured I would counter all the pics of hot girls on this site. This pic is for the ladies.

Now, let me describe the excitement of my first time behind the wheel. My first drive was to the eye doctor. The eye doctor is not far at all from my house. My mother, for the first time, said I could borrow the minivan. The strange idea that I should choose this outing, in which I am going to get a new prescription to help me see better, is not lost on me but I asked anyways. I got together everything I needed, took the keys, and headed out.

Getting behind the wheel, the first thing I do is look for the tape converter so I can play my iPod. Driving without music (or worse, with horrible music) isn’t really driving at all. I was not about to pass up the opportunity to play whatever weird and possibly vulgar music I was in the mood for, while driving myself someplace. I thought it would be extremely cool to be a small Jewish girl in a minivan listening to some hardcore Rap. Second, I do all the normal car adjustment things they teach you. Third, I start the engine and drive.

Now, I’ll skip all the boring actual driving and get straight to why I thought this was ever worthy of a blog entry for public eyes. First of all, I could not shake the feeling that after I parked, something terrible would happen to the car. While getting my eyes examined, I was super paranoid that I’d return to the car and it’d be gone or a window would be smashed or I’d somehow get a ticket. Or worse, I left the door unlocked and someone would just take the car.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, a new feeling of independence took over me. Somehow, even though I still live in my parents’ house, have only just started my first full-time salaried job, and was driving a car that didn’t belong to me, I felt more independent than I have ever felt in my life. I felt suddenly capable to take the metaphorical wheel of my life and drive myself to success. I felt like an adult instead of a child, which only counts for half a person, if that.

To say the least, driving by myself was a great experience and one that everyone should someday try.

- Lola Locke

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The Pros and Cons of Living in a House with Wood Paneling

Posted on: March 6th, 2011 by Lola Locke 4 Comments

In the real estate game, wood paneling is considered particularly heinous. In Chicago, Illinois, I live in a house with wood paneling. These are my stories.

Pros

The walls don’t get dirty
Or so I’ve been told. Really, this is what my mom has told me more as a reassurance that wood paneling is a good alternative to traditional walls. She said it with excitement, to convince me that she actually believes what she’s saying. I glared, unconvinced, at her in response. Truth is, the reason I never thought about this aspect of wood paneling is because I never think about cleaning walls. I’m pretty sure that almost no one does; at least not on a regular basis. From my experience, anyone who cleans their walls tends to take their cleaning pretty seriously. Nevertheless, it’s true that I don’t have to worry about dirty fingerprints showing up on my walls. This doesn’t mean the walls don’t get dirty – they just don’t show it. Which, really, isn’t that what everyone wants?

You can put nails to hang pictures up pretty much anywhere
I am a pictures-hanging kind of gal. I love decorating walls with posters and frames and pictures. For those of you not familiar with wood paneling, in between the panels are these small gaps which are filled with… well, I don’t know what fills them, but I’m assuming some sort of adhesive that keeps the paneling in place. These gaps make convenient locations for nails, much more convenient than regular walls. With regular walls, one has to worry about cracking plaster, and if the nail will hit something it shouldn’t on the other side of the wall. To the owner of a wood paneled house, this is a thought yhat never crosses their mind.

It’s unique
I know this is a bit of a stretch, but it’s included in this list more as a comfort to myself than to anyone else. I have never been inside another person’s house and seen wood paneling.

You don’t have to worry about painting the walls
Deciding a color is such a chore. Not for me. I’m not buying swatches from Home Depot or painting splotches on the wall to see which color looks the best, like you see in commercials where people are moving into a new house. They may look happy figuring out which type of blue they want to grace their living room with, but don’t believe it for a second. I am sure they would rather have wood paneling and not have to worry about which color looks the best when the sunlight beams through the windows. And you don’t have to spend money on all that paint. As a Jew, this is the most appealing aspect.

Cons

Your house has wood paneling
I’m going to come right out and say it. There’s really not much to explain here. It’s embarrassing, it’s unattractive, and it’s depressing.

You constantly feel like you’re stuck in the 70s
My house in particular is pretty good at tricking you into believing you’ve stepped into some time warp that brought you back to a place where hippies and the word ‘groovy’ are popular. Strike that. I’m not sure hippies were ever popular. But I’m getting away from my point. Not only does my house have wood paneling, most rooms don’t have proper light fixtures. In place of overhead light fixtures, lamps are hung from the ceiling by hooks, much like potted plants are hung on people’s porches. If that wasn’t unappealing enough for you, each lamp is different. I’m not sure who picked these lamps out, but whoever did was obviously smitten with the happy, care-free attitudes of the 70s. Three words: Smiley face lamps. They look exactly what they sound like. It’s a round lamp, painted yellow, with black eyes and a smiling mouth. And there’s more than one.

You instantly know that everything in the house is at least 30 years old
One doesn’t (and shouldn’t) expect anything more from a wood-paneled house. Stepping into the house, you already feel like you’ve traveled back in time, why not complete it with old appliances that come in colors they don’t make anymore? Why not include some features on them that no longer exist on modern appliances? Wood paneling is the first sign that nothing in the house has been updated or remodeled since the walls were installed.

You feel poor
Even if you’re not poor. I’m not poor, but comparing my house to other people’s is a horrible, depressing feeling. Wood paneling automatically – somehow – makes your socio-economic status drop. It doesn’t matter what your annual salary is, if you have wood paneling, it nullifies at least half of it.

It seems impossible to take paneling down
For all these complaints, you’d think I’d be viciously tearing down the panels with my fingernails. I just want you to think about it, though. How does one even begin to take down wood paneling? This is a material made before my time, forged more than a decade before my birth. I’m not sure how people install it, much less take it down. Even if I was able to pry it from the walls, the fear of uncovering what is underneath is enough to scare me into submission. What if there’s wallpaper underneath? I’d have to figure out how to take that off, too! I’d quite possibly spend my entire life uncovering the layers of this wall. Even worse, what if it reveals hundreds of cracks in the wall from all those nails being thoughtlessly hammered into it? I’d basically have to repair the whole house. If that’s not enough to worry about, remember those gaps in between the paneling, filled with who-knows-what? What about those? It’s enough to convince yourself that wood paneling is your destiny and all you can do is accept the burden that’s been placed upon you.

- Lola Locke

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