My car, the Chevy Sonic Turbo, recently turned 12 years old. I’ve had it for 10 years myself, and together we’ve enjoyed a decade of driving. I love my car, but the one thing that drives me crazy, and I’ve discussed this before, is the fact that the hands-free calling is very archaic. There are a lot of commands to go through, and it has a terrible time recognizing simple names like ‘Ken’. As a result, I changed ‘Ken’ to ‘Kenneth’ in my contacts list, but even still, it invariably asked me, “Did you say ‘Kenneth’? as if I have some thick accent that makes my requests indiscernible. But then on Friday, this happened. I was driving back from the bank in another town, but I’d stopped off at the Restore Store, and wanted to let Ken know about the cool lamp I found. I hit the call button on my steering wheel:

Car Lady (because it’s a female voice): Ready.
Me: Call.
Car Lady: Call. Using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name or number to call.
Me: Kenneth.
Car Lady: Did you say ‘Jeff Goldblum’?
Me: What?
Car Lady: Pardon?
Me: ???
Car Lady: Please say a command.
Me: Call!
Car Lady: Call. Using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name and number to call.
Me: Kenneth!
Car Lady: OK. Calling ‘Jeff Goldblum’ using ‘Suzanne’s phone’.
Me: What the f*ck?! (hangs up)

I sat there for a minute, not sure what to do. Jeff Goldblum? Then I realized that years before, I had received a link to get text messages from Jeff Goldblum, which I thought at the time might be a scam. I had received an initial text from him that said this:

Which is exactly what someone who WASN’T Jeff Goldblum would say, am I right? At any rate, Jeff Goldblum really WAS in my contacts list, but that didn’t explain why my car phone lady was trying to get me to call him. Was it a sign from the universe? But I didn’t want to talk to Jeff Goldblum, I wanted to talk to Ken, although I’m sure Jeff Goldblum would have been breathlessly ecstatic over my lamp find, if the way he acts in most of his movies is any indication. I pressed the car phone button on my steering wheel again:

Car Lady: Ready.
Me: Call.
Car Lady: Call using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name or number to call.
Me: Kenneth!!
Car Lady: Did you say ‘Jeff Goldblum’?
Me: No, you stupid woman! Kenneth!! Kenneth!!
Car Lady: OK, calling ‘Kenneth’.

The whole situation was so bizarre that I decided to investigate. And you know what? It turns out that the text number IS actually Jeff Goldblum. Here’s a link to his Facebook video from November 2019 announcing that if you set his number, 310-620-6558, as a contact, he would text you with updates about his career: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=529097061000888 But I guess he got bored very quickly of the whole thing, because I haven’t had a message from him since 2022. Yes, I got ghosted by Jeff Goldblum. And I’d gotten over it, years ago, so thanks Car Phone Lady for re-opening that wound.

Speaking of wounds, Ken once again managed to almost lose a digit on the table saw. This time it was his thumb. And this time, I was a little less sympathetic—I mean, the first time, it’s a terrible accident; the second time, it’s more like, “WHAT DID YOU DO?? WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT WAITING FOR THE BLADE TO STOP SPINNING?! Even the doctor at the hospital (who had sewn him up last time) asked, “Is this ‘weaponized incompetence’? (which is where you do something so very badly that no one asks you to do it again) to which I replied, “I didn’t ask him to build a shed! He WANTED to do it!” and the doctor said, “Oh, I wasn’t talking about him,” and I said, “Are you referring to the way you’re stitching up his thumb? Because yes, I’m hoping we never have to ask you to do this again,” and we all laughed. Except for Ken, who was grimacing in pain.

In other news, last week, I had a lot of people ask for pictures of my cute boots, so here they are:

Adorable, yes? Jeff Goldblum would love them.