A Writer waited in a corporate tire\ncenter for a warranty service he didn’t comprehend. He knew nothing\nof tires. In fact, he’d never changed a tire in his life. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he waited, he polished an essay for\na slick Zen magazine about noble, silent caring for the world. In his\ncase, caring meant accommodating honeybees building a hive in a wheel\nwell of a vintage Airstream that served as his irony-free writing\nstudio. The essay’s payoff was the delicious ending where he\nharvested the honey, slathered it on butter he churned himself, and\nthe biscuits made from scratch. Anyone could do it. They just had to\nnotice, care and act. Action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Writer didn’t churn butter. He made\nbiscuits from a box. He would never harvest the Airstream honey nor\nany honey. It didn’t matter. The essay would move hearts and minds,\nserve the greater good, the larger cause. He, along with many other\nwriters, felt perfectly comfortable making things up, because, well,\nmost writers practice empathy on the page and never in real life.\nIt’s really easy that way. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the early afternoon of December\n24th<\/sup> in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast. Outside the tire\ncenter, a near freezing rain fell. If the temperature dropped another\ndegree, everybody’s Christmas would be shot to icy hell. They’d have\nto spend the holiday alone or seek out strangers within sliding\ndistance and break figgy pudding with them. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n He sat next to a big window overlooking\nthe parking lot. Needles of rain battered the glass. The lot was\nfull. The center was packed. Twas the season for new tires, tire\nrepair, tire rotations, studded tires. Young men in coverall uniforms\nwearing Santa hats and reindeer horns ran around, rolling tires,\nchecking with customers, trying to expedite service and get people\nmoving on their merry way. It was all sort of a festive madhouse, but\nthose in the waiting room were oblivious because everyone, including\nsmall children, fiddled on their devices. Coloring was dead. No\ntalking. No eye contact. No reading magazines. No one even watched\nFox News blasting out commentary defending the President’s mocking of\na quadriplegic liberal reporter falling out of her wheelchair at a\nrally because one of the President’s fanatics tipped it over. It was\nreally funny. She’d shit herself, too. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n A fake Christmas tree, fresh cedar bows\nand a myrtlewood Nativity scene atop a straw-filled monster truck\ntire comprised the holiday decorations. Free coffee simmered on a\nwarmer but nobody cared because everyone sipped sweet $9 holiday\nespresso concoctions and thought they tasted swell. Drip coffee was\ndead. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The essay was going well. Words like\ndappled<\/em> and glinted<\/em> flowed effortlessly from tapping\nhis fancy tablet. He had no problem tuning out the chaos of the tire\ncenter because he was listening to classic country Christmas music on\nheadphones. He had no idea what was going on around him. He knew\neverything the essay needed to sing, to soar, and earn him a tidy\nthree grand and a free week long retreat at a Buddhist compound in\nthe Wallowa Mountains. He wasn’t even a Buddhist! During the retreat,\nhe’d write an essay about gathering wild lavender in a nearby Native\nAmerican cemetery and making peasant lemonade from it. He’d sell that\nessay lickety-split to a glossy magazine extolling the gritty virtues\nof peasant life. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh what a Christmas Eve it was going to\nbe in Lincoln City! His Yoga instructor girlfriend was driving over\nthe hills and through the woods from Portland for a tasteful\nbacchanal, and his fans had bought thousands of his books, $19.99\nsoftcover tomes exuding the benefits of practicing empathy. The books\nwere purchased as gifts to instill caring. No one would read them.\nBut they would Instagram the holy living shit out of the book’s cover\nand let all their world know they were kicking ass making the world a\nbetter place. Instagram makes it so easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Writer waited in a corporate tire center for a warranty service he didn’t comprehend. He knew nothing of tires. In fact, he’d never changed a tire in his life. As he waited, he polished an essay for a slick Zen magazine about noble, silent caring for the world. In his case, caring meant accommodating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,5],"tags":[504],"class_list":["post-5572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-meditations","tag-oregon-christmas-tales","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5572"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5575,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5572\/revisions\/5575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}