Come here, go away.

I’m borrowing the concept of “Come here, go away” from Sars. I believe she invented this handy blog structure shortcut, but I can’t be sure. “Come here” is for things in my life I enjoy so much that if it were feasible, I would clutch them to my person very tightly until they could no longer breathe. “Go away” is for things I would like to see on the business end of a Quentin Tarantino movie. Thanks for not suing me for copyright infringement, Sars.


Come here, shiny, shiny Camry. You are my sunshine. You are sexy, reliable, roomy, and in no way possessed of evil spirits. You’ve got my back in bad weather, you help me find you in crowded parking lots, and you’ve even coached me to get over my irrational fear of drive-through car washes. I apologize for not having named you yet, but if it makes you feel any better, the VenJetta didn’t get its name until after I’d had it for several years. (Well, it did go by “Diablo” for a little while when I first got it, but that was more a reflection of my own skills learning to drive a stick than the car’s actual personality.)

Go away, whoever dinged my f***ing door in the parking lot. If you hadn’t done such a stellar parking job in the first place, maybe you would have had enough room to get out of your vehicle without muscling your way past mine. If I ever find you, you’re going to give me a first-hand report on the roominess of my trunk.

Come here, Hot Fuzz. I’m on the edge of my seat over here, waiting for you to arrive in America. If you are half as awesome as Spaced or Shaun of the Dead, you and I are going to be braiding each other’s hair long into the night.

Go away, inconsiderate moviegoers. You do not get to provide a running commentary during the movie. You do not get to say, “Oh, my gosh, what’s he going to do now?” LET’S FIND OUT TOGETHER, SHALL WE? You do not get to sing along to the soundtrack unless you are in the movie. You do not get to make sound effects, even if they are disturbingly convincing. You do not get to bring your four-year-old to an R movie and then act all shocked when he starts to cry. You do not get to text your BFF on your cell phone every 30 seconds because even if the sound is off, the glow from your screen is so distracting that all I want to do is take the phone away from you and hide it in my Diet Coke. This is not your living room. Also, if you had arrived at the theater on time, you would have heard the singing frog tell you all of these guidelines already, and my blood pressure would be normal.

Come here, Hawaii. The mere thought of you is all that is going to get me through the next three weeks at work. I know we haven’t seen each other in a long time, but I still have feelings for you, and I hope you recognize me when I return. I’m a little older, a little larger, and a lot paler, but I still know my way around a luau, and now I have the added benefit of being old enough to drink. If you play your cards right, I may never leave you, and we can live happily ever after with the cast of Lost.

Go away, cubicle neighbor who has all the daily drama of a fourteen-year-old girl. Take your personal phone calls elsewhere, or limit yourself to ten per day. My iPod’s volume only goes up so loud, and I’m concerned that if you don’t go away, I’m going to get fired before I get a chance to use my Hawaii vacation time.

Come here, Izzy. You are soft and cuddly, and I can’t be tense when you are purring. Your daily kisses on my nose and cheek are sometimes painful, but mostly adorable. Thank you for letting me be your best friend, and please don’t get very much bigger.

Go away, Izzy, at three o’clock in the morning AND EVERY OTHER MINUTE OF THE DAY when you will not give up on your life’s mission to destroy the very expensive Easter flower arrangement that my mother sent me. No, I do NOT see the irony in your quest to choke yourself on pussywillows and I am totally not interested in your baby’s breath mustache. If you die from munching on some exotic flower, it will be with a sad, sad heart that I say, “I told you so,” but don’t think I won’t say it anyway, because you know you are not supposed to jump up on the table and it is absolutely not charming when you sneak behind my back to do it on tiptoes so I can’t hear you.

Come here, Jim Halpert. Let me take you away with me.

Go away, Sanjaya. No, seriously. GO AWAY. I don’t even watch American Idol and I’m sick of you. I want to vote you off my memory.

Come here, Mika, and bring your single, “Grace Kelly,” with you. It makes me want to break out every Queen album I own, which is a lot, and dance badly. I can only play this song about 13 more times before I overdose, but until then I am thoroughly rocking out to your Freddie Mercury vocals. I honestly hope you are not a one-trick pony, and that you have something more original up your sleeve.

Go away, Daniel Powter, for the love of God. I thought I was rid of that musically revolting, perpetually stuck-in-the-head, whiny-ass “Bad Day” song last year, but every once in awhile it pops up on the radio and I want to surgically remove my eardrums with my car keys.

And I don’t want to get blood on my Camry, because, shiny.