European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 19, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Columns music could soothe the breakdown blues by Dave Barry Knight Ridder newspapers it s not just your car. It s your  from a to commercial starring or. Good wrench an honest caring competent fictitious Mechanic. I was on my Way to a rehearsal of the nem toads hailed by critics As the world s least talented All White Rock band. We were scheduled to appear that afternoon on a Parade float and we urgently needed to rehearse because for Security reasons most of us had never met. All we had been told by our Leader an attorney named Glen is that we were going to play wooly bully in what Glen displaying the general depth of our musical knowledge described As the key of the second string from the Bottom. I was driving briskly along when All of a sudden from deep within the car sector where they keep the mystery parts such As the camshaft the ones that regular humans never see there came a new sound Ticka Ticka Clack Clack  hey ouch yikes dammit Stop which i did but not before noticing that the Oil pressure gauge was suddenly saying Zero. That is your car s Way of telling you that if you happen to have a massive overdose of Tranquili Zers in the Glove compartment this would be the Ideal time to gulp them Down. What gets me is this is supposed to be a Tough Macho Al stud Hombre of a car. This is the car that in the to commercials is always shown Way up of top of some rugged nearly inaccessible wilderness Peak with the owner gazing thoughtfully into the distance. What he s thinking about i now realize is How much it will Cost to get a Tow truck up there. I should know better than to Trust to commercials. I once watched the filming of a commercial for a Chain saw where the idea was to demonstrate that you could drive a tank Over this saw without hurting it. They had rented an actual military tank and they had two actors dressed up in White Laboratory Coats and holding clipboards playing the part of Chain saw scientists. The script called for the tank to drive Over the saw then for the scientists to Rush up pull it out of the dirt and yank the Cord and the saw would fire right up. Of course this would inspire the viewing audience which is fed up with Chain saws that Stop working every time some stupid tank drives Over them to Rush out and buy this product. The problem was the tank kept squashing the Chain saws. The pretend scientists would Rush up As per the script but what they pulled out of the dirt would be this free form Metal sculpture the Only recognizable feature of which was the Cord which the scientists would gamely yank on As though they actually expected the sculpture to Start. This made for Superb entertainment like watching a Man trying to Call Long distance using a toaster. I had to leave at the end of four Chain saws but i m sure they kept going until they somehow got one to Start which would of course be the one in the commercial. So i should not have been surprised when my Al stud Hombre car alleged climber of wilderness peaks was unable to handle the rugged automotive Challenge of a paved Street. I pulled off to the Side and following Basic Guy procedure opened the Hood. Unfortunately All i could find under there was the engine which is of course useless in an emergency like this but i kept looking at it because that s what Guys do. The car manufacturers ought to put Little to sets under there so a Guy would have something to watch while he waited for the Tow truck. Maybe he d even see an action packed commercial featuring his car. Anyway my car is now at the dealer s repair shop and i m waiting for the estimate. All the service department employees Are out shopping for new Homes and As soon As they decide How much they re going to need total for Down payments they re going to bring the estimate Over to my House on a flatbed truck. That s the bad news. The Good news is the nem toads performance went very Well. We played in a bizarre annual Miami event called the King Mango strut which is a Parade strictly limited to anybody who wants to be in it. For example near our float was a group of people All named Fred who Call themselves the marching freds and chant we re Fred and you re  this was one of the More mainstream groups. The nem toads played a repertoire consisting of wooly bully followed by another song that we had some trouble with because the Lead Singer would not Tell us what it was and then to keep things moving we d swing Back into the popular old favorite wooly bully. We got a Good crowd response. What song Are you Guys playing anyway the crowd responded. At the end we destroyed a Harmonica. The experience took my mind off my car problems and it gave me an idea would t it be great if wherever you drove you towed a float behind your car with a live blues band on it when you had car trouble you d pull off the Road and while you waited for help your band would play soulful sympathetic customized blues songs about How dem pistons is done seized or whatever. The band also could help in other ways such As reminding you what to pick up at the drugstore. You d pull into the parking lot and your band would Crank up real loud and sing you get a electric heat pad to keep to body warm an some Hemo Rhoid medication in suppository form of. So maybe it would t be so great. The table is no place for a Telephone Call by miss manners United feature Syndicate dear miss manners twice recently i have had the unpleasant experience of dining next to a table where a portable Telephone was in use. Overhearing portions of the conversation was unavoidable because of my proximity to the Call and the volume of the conversation. I Trust you will not chide me for eavesdropping As in neither instance was there a vacant table to which i could move nor do i feel it polite or for that matter feasible to attempt to eat with my fingers in my ears. I deduced from the loud laughter accompanying each Call that the conversations were not related to an emergency or to serious business. In both cases there was one other diner at the offending table who was completely ignored during the phone Call. With this latest technological intrusion upon us must we diners who appreciate our peace and quiet ask for a separate no portable phones Section in restaurants please shed some Light on How one should Deal with this latest distressing Battle in the War of technology is. Etiquette. Gentle Reader your etiquette problem is nothing compared with that encountered by the dining partners of the telephones. Had miss manners been one of them she might have been tempted to excuse herself politely from the table in order to ring the person up for conversation. In your Case it is not the technology that interfered with your meal but the noise. You should merely have asked to the waiter for a quieter table. Dear miss manners my 14-year-old son does not like to ride roller coasters or any of the spinning or upside Down rides at carnivals. However he does not like to be called Chicken or party spoiler by his friends. How can he graciously Tell these friends that he does not want to participate without being humiliated or embarrassed he does t want to say they make me  gentle Reader it is time that your son Learned to Buck peer pressure or there is no telling what he might be talked into against his inclinations. He is quite right that they make me sick is an unpleasantly vivid explanation. The Best explanation is none at All. Amusement is a matter of individual taste and requires no further justification. I d rather go Over to the shooting gallery i la meet you there when you re finished should be sufficient. If your son is then pressed for an explanation he should not say More than a non prejudicial it s just not my idea of  dear miss manners lately i have been hearing a rude question from clerks in Many stores was there something else the Way this question is asked is an invasion of privacy and i do not feel that it is right to pose such an unethical query in such an abrasive Way. I am a very private person and do not want to have a rude commercial question shouted at me. Gentle Reader that is not a rude commercial question. A rude commercial question is can t you see i m on my break or what on Earth do you want something like that for miss manners really cannot have people taking insult so easily when there Are so Many genuine insults flying about. Was there something else simply Means does this conclude the transaction or do you have any other requests dear miss manners my sister is a single Parent of a soon to be 1-year-old. She is planning a birthday party for the baby with 40 guests. Some of these people Are Only acquaintances and most of them Don t have children. I think a child s birthday party is a family affair and that my sister is displaying poor taste in making such an occasion of it. Gentle Reader miss manners agrees that before children Are old enough to have friends of their own which is to say people however Small whose birthdays they Are Happy to celebrate however primitively they depend for birthday guests on the kind of unquestioning enthusiasm that can Only be supplied by relatives. Unfortunately she is afraid that your sister might find this out As people respond to her invitation. Childless acquaintances Are not generally dying to go to the birthday parties of babies. T have a question on etiquette write to miss manners in care of the stars and stripes Apo 09211, your question will be forwarded to her. Miss manners regrets that she can Only answer questions in her column. January 19, 1989 stripes Magazine