TheBanyanTree: Cup holders, silly putty and reading

[PJMoney]

Cup holders.

It wasn't the most important requirement.  A 2 litre-ish engine was the most
important requirement.  But good cup holders came next on the list as far as
I was concerned.

The aircon in the Falcon wasn't going to last another wet season.  The car
was 10 years old.  We're paying $1.39 a litre for petrol.  We only had one
boy still at home.  We just didn't need that big whopper car any more no
matter how much I liked its 4 litre grunt.  So it was time to trade the
Falcon in.

The search took us about 9 months.  Part of that time was used for adjusting
to the idea of buying a new car.  Most of it was used for getting caught up
with other things.  The rest was used for actually looking at cars.

We looked at Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas, Mazdas and Fords.  We even looked at
Holdens since it was always possible that in 10 years GM might have done
something about improving their quality control.  Since I couldn't see much
evidence of that I didn't care about their cup holders.

All of the other relevantly sized cars had crap cup holders except for the
descendant of the Mazda 626.  Those looked OK but we didn't want to buy a
626 (they're bigger than what we need - and expensive) and the dealers had
no descendants of the 323 in stock for us to look at.  Furthermore they
weren't going to get any in for three months but by then we were very ready
to buy and very unwilling to wait.  

Out of desperation we went to look at the Hyundais.  The 2 litre Elantra
hatchback had lovely cup holders.  It also came with free spoiler and alloy
wheels - all for a mere $20,000 or so.  Done deal.  Now I find that the
thing I enjoy most about it is the CD player.  I listen to The Best of Gypsy
Kings, set to loud.  I am a hoon.  Bambaleoooh.  Bambaleaaah.  Something,
something, something.


Silly Putty.

I presume it's the same thing that Tom was talking about because it has
borax in it.  My youngest son made it in a chemistry prac last year when he
was still at school.  However, when he brought it home in a zip lock bag he
said it was flubber.  

It was a clear, deep ocean green colour.  I loved the squishy, bouncy feel
of it both in and out of the bag.  For a while I kept the bag on my desk and
turned it this way and that to watch the stuff settle.  Then I taped it to
the shelf behind me.  When I walk into the room of a morning I give it a
squeeze.  

It's drying out now.  There are bubbles of gas all through it.  Every so
often I wonder if adding water and kneading it a lot might work to restore
it to its original condition.  But then I think that nothing can ever go
back to what it was.

The youngest will never again be that cute little guy in the white socks and
the floppy broad-brimmed hat heading off with his older brother to catch the
school bus and discover how mean other kids can be.  He's 19, handsome (I
think) and doing a gap year working for Holiday Inn in food and beverage to
get the experience on his resume and increase his chances of getting
part-time work when he goes to university to study psychology next year.

Reading.

I never do that in the toilet.

Janice