Stream of Consciousness II

The cast of Stranger Things.
Credit: Tina Rowden/Netflix

The defroster on my Kia Soul was not working right as we drove home from one of two Passover ceders. The windshield was all blurry and it made it hard to see as we crossed the Goethals Bridge from New Jersey to Staten Island. Plus we got a letter from Kia stating we might be subject to a recall. I suspected this was just a means of pulling in customers for an expensive check-up. But the next Monday (the second ceder, this one in Manhattan among friends, was Sunday night), I was sitting in the Northstar Service Center, watching the local Fox News channel on a giant screen. It was Channel 5, not the Fox News cable channel or I would have requested they change it.

An elderly woman a few seats away was trying to arrange a medical appointment on her cell phone. She had a receptionist on speaker and was telling her the whole history.

“They found blood in my urine and my platelets are low,” she related in a voice I could distinctly hear for several yards away. “I want to see my urologist about it but the first available slot isn’t until the first week of May and I’m a nervous wreck.” It was early April. 

I was finishing a novel about the Civil War on my phone and the news was covering the heinous reports that the president of El Salvador was lining up with Trump about refusing to return a mistaken deportee despite the Supreme Court’s orders. Thankfully, they eventually switched to live coverage of a murder trial. 

I was planning my TV viewing. This week I binged the first season of Stranger Things on Netflix in preparation of seeing the Broadway show based on the series. The stage play takes place before the series and was a huge hit in London. What bothered me about the series was the parents of the kids. All, except for Winona Ryder, were so oblivious. If a girl with supernatural powers were living in my basement, I’d know it! And any daughter of mine who stayed out after ten PM when people in my town were mysteriously missing would be grounded for a month. Plus how did David Harbour as a small town cop, get to be such a skilled fighter he can take down multiple security guards and CIA agents?

My car was fine, but they told me I needed new wiper blades, even though I’d replaced them just a few weeks ago. Morale: Don’t buy anything from Auto Zone.