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If you got a problem, yo, I'll solve it
01/31/07
by Shaw

"The ends justify the means." I haven't read The Prince, nor anything else written by Italian scholar Niccolò Machiavelli. I've never even heard The Don Killuminati or any of the Tupac material recorded under the Makaveli pseudonym. So, I'm sure that the above quote is a gross simplification of the message contained in the famous tract. That said, in the past few months, I have really lived my life that way. And not on purpose.

Niccolò	Tupac

This column is about getting things done the hard way. Not in the sense that your grandfather would say to you... you know, "there's the easy way, and then there's the right way." I am talking about the most circuitous route possible to solving your problem. That's my way. But on the bright side - if you got a problem, yo, I'll solve it. And here's how:

New Year's Eve, 2006. Here's the gist: Having a good time, drinking champagne from 12 oz. cups, going to the bathroom a lot, wearing a new suit and cufflinks gifted to me by a friend, with friends, having fun, yelling a lot, drinking more champagne out of 12 oz. cups, ball drops, it's 2007.

New Year's Day, 2007. Still intoxicated at 12:01am. Still drinking. Champagne. 12 oz. servings, downed like beer. Average alcohol content of beer: 4%. Average alcohol content of champagne: 12%. Leaving big New Year's Eve party. Outside. Cold. Raining.

And then my girlfriend and I saw a problem that needed solving. A guy and his girlfriend, standing outside, arguing loudly. Not happy. It's New Year's Day! We're happy with each other, they should be too. My girlfriend and I make comments to each other about the other couple fighting. We think we're being discreet. They hear us. They don't like us. They yell at us. I yell back. Champagne. 12 oz. cups. Man crosses the sidewalk to confront Shaw. Shaw, thus confronted, suggests that Man should not be confronting him. Man grabs Shaw. Grappling ensues. Man punches Shaw in face. Shaw is angered. Girlfriend of Man reaches in with long nails and big ring and scratches Shaw many times. Shaw is further angered. Shaw pushes Man's girlfriend away and wrestles Man to ground. Sits on Man's chest, holding Man's neck with left hand.

... And then, cradling the man's neck in my hand, about to hit him in the face, the first stab of sobriety in a while makes its way to my brain. It occurs to me that this is a bad idea. No good can come of this. If I hit this man while his head is on the sidewalk, one of us is going to the hospital and one of us is going to jail. And I know how it works, I've played EASports Sega Genesis Hockey - the guy who wins the fight always goes to the penalty box. So I stand up and get away before anything else happens.

Shaw's damage total:

1 long scratch to the back of the ear (the girl's ring)
2 small lacerations under my chin (the girl's nails)
1 bruise on my elbow (from the scuffle onto the ground)
1 sprained thumb (from grappling with the guy's suit)
1 oddly located cut on my right wrist (scuffle onto the ground)
1 bruised cheek/black eye (from the punch to the face)
1 cut on my right hand, on the web between my thumb and forefinger (?)
1 missing cufflink
1 missing button from my suit
2 ripped elbows on my suit
1 ripped knee on my suit

But the point of all this? Problem solved. Once the fight started, those two had resolved their differences and united (against me). And this morning at the radiology office, while I was waiting my turn to get my still-unmovable thumb X-Rayed, I thought back to that couple on that night, and how great it was that they had healed their issues that night. Hopefully I'll get a mention at their wedding.

Hopefully this is not my thumb.

Three years ago. I got my my car washed because it came free with my gas for some reason. Inspired by the way my car looked on the outside, I got some interior cleaning supplies, cleaned the dash and upholstery, and windexed the inside of the windows. My car had never looked better.

Two years ago. Driving in the middle of the night in a rainstorm, it occurred to me that the reason I couldn't see anything wasn't the fog on the windshield, but rather the fact that I hadn't cleaned the inside of the glass in a year. There were visible smudges all over the place. I wiped it off with a paper towel, which didn't help much, but it got me home.

One year ago. A soda can exploded in my car, and coated the windshield anew. It occurred to me that this would be a good time to wash the windshield for the first time in two years. Maybe later. A paper towel took care of it for now.

Six months ago. My girlfriend made the first remark about my windshield being kind of dirty. I made a mental note to try to clean it soon to impress her.

Two days ago. I woke up in the morning and walked out to my car to drive to work, when I noticed that I couldn't see out of the right side of the car... because the windshield had been smashed by an object, causing spiralling cracks in the glass that spread halfway across the entire pane.

This morning. As I drove from my completed thumb X-Ray appointment to the Auto Glass shop, I thought to myself, "Surely, $250 is a lot of money, and I don't want to spend it. But... I really can't wait to get into a car with a clean windshield."

Problem solved.

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