I saw a rainbow today. I saw a fucking rainbow. That’s about where I was when I saw the rainbow. LOOK. I said. IT’S A FUCKING RAINBOW. FUCK YOU RAINBOW.

*

So first you have to know that a few months ago, I donated my Howard Stern library.

Private Parts, Miss America, and Artie Lange’s Too Fat to Fish, along with Gary Dell’abate’s They Call Me Baba Booey, all went. I wasn’t going to read them again, I figured. Let’s make some room.

Off they went. And I have been sore about it ever since.

I don’t even think the first two titles are any longer in print. I have sort of hated myself for doing this ever since. Really. How could you part with those?

*

I had plans to be in my own personal Star’s Hollow today, tomorrow, and Thursday. It’s three hours west. Yesterday, my car told me the engine was overheating. Which was ridiculous because the car had been sitting all night long. I ignored it. I ignored it and hit the road at about 8:45 a.m. today.

Just before the Clarence rest stop, I noticed the warning again. I looked at the temp guage on my dash and realized it was ALL THE WAY UP TO “H.” Mind you I am now one hour away from my apartment. I stopped at the rest stop. I went into the building to perform my ablutions. I then opened the hood and didn’t see anything weird. But then you have to remember that I dropped out of auto mechanic school.

So I closed the hood and started down the highway with the heater blasting to blow some of the heat off of the engine. This kept the needle pretty much at the middle. And I stopped at the first exit I could. And I found a Monroe Muffler.

The dude told me you might want to try going across the street first to get you some coolant and topping it off yourself because we charge a diagnosis fee. I did this and shortly thereafter tried to get back on the highway, whereas the needle immediately went back to WAY HOT DUDE. I made a patently illegal U-Turn and went back to Monroe Muffler.

The verdict eventually came down: Water pump. This, I now know, is a common issue in GM cars after 40,000 miles. It’s so common they make a “kit” for it. The dude had to go to another location to get the kit. So it was going to take a few hours. They offered to drop me somewhere. I said, I see a Tully’s over there.

So I’m eating a mediocre burger at a Tully’s and as it often happens I’m already naming the kids I’m going to have with the beautiful bartender, and I realize this is the same Tully’s my buddy and I visited last fall to kill time before the Pixies show, where we watched like four NFL games at once and had what was really the highlight of the trip (sorry Black Francis) and so that was a lovely coincidence. Allison, the bartender, noticed my reminiscing, and she stopped short at my barstool and said “hey. what’s up, hon. you okay?” And I told her the whole story of the last time I had been there, and she twirled her hair and said “awwww, that’s so nice,” and then she brushed my cheek with her hand and smiled.

Just kidding. The Wayfair wife would have been more attentive.

Anyway, so I had walked up and down the plaza, I stopped at a Barnes & Noble (this store did NOT sell CDs, which was weird), then at Bed Bath & Beyond (this store did NOT sell CDs, which is normal), and Best Buy (again, NO CDs. WTF is up, Buffalo?) Then I went back to Tully’s and Allison was extremely concerned and listened to me describe my plight and then she played with her necklace in that way she does and

oh fuck it you know that part is bullshit. I ordered another iced tea and drank it.

Now the Monroe shuttle had driven me to Tully’s. But I walked back. And across the street was this Goodwill store. I gazed across the other street to see if my car was still on the rack. It was. So I had more time to kill.

Let’s do thrifting, I figured.

For the record, this Goodwill store sells CDs, unlike the B&N in this neighborhood and the Best Buy in this neighborhood. And I happened to find one I’d been thinking about, the soundtrack to A Chorus Line. Yoink.

Then, I moved to the books. Three titles jumped out at me.

Private Parts. Miss America. Too Fat to Fish. All in hardcover. Yoink. Yoink. Yoink.

I spent four bucks. I recovered the bulk of my Howard Stern library. And I get to listen to DANCE TEN LOOKS THREE any friggin time I want.

The rest of my day was equally frustrating. The new water pump did not solve the problem. I ended up at a Chevy dealer doing initial troubleshooting and will be back there tomorrow hoping they can find the problem. I am staying at an EconoLodge and found the local Wegman’s incredibly confusing and they for some reason have no cider cold, and that was nearly a breaking point for this fella man I can’t tell you how the day was wearing on me at that moment

But I have nearly restored my Stern Show library, and if I didn’t know otherwise, I’d think that happened via some sort of providence. What a fucked up Rube Goldberg machine to reunite me with those precious tomes.

And a bababooey to ya’ll.