No refuge from Sarah Palin's wink

I'm sipping coffee at 7 a.m., minding my own business on a cozy, cloudy morning, in total thrall with no classes to teach on Friday when Karen says from across the kitchen nook table, "We need new tires. Can you do that this morning?"

Karen is so cool and dear. She and the sisterhood of women live in a non sequitur universe, wonderful in that way they can be sitting quietly when an idea that might as well have originated with the Big Bang and swirled around their universe for three billion years, suddenly arrives, zips through the window, goes in between the eyes, and comes right back out of the mouth thusly: "The bathroom needs painting; can you do that this afternoon?"

It's eerie how often the idea meets a man's need. Going for tires was just what I needed after the debate, the bailout, the mess of the world without. I walked into Discount Tire at 8 a.m. and entered a showplace of huge tires (they look so much bigger off the car) and hulking rims and manly refuge, not gym men but regular men, talking tires and treads and plies with a light seasoning of manly patois and one-liners, and at the counter, manly decisions being growled out: "Go ahead, put 'em on."

My guy was Willie. We agreed on some mileage credit and tires identical to the old ones, and Willie said, "How are we going to take care of that?" "I knew it would come to that," I said, and we chuckled together in a manly way. It was such a simple world. Willie told me it would take about 45 minutes.

Then Sarah Palin winked at me. She has winked at me at least once an hour since the debate ended, including all the hours in the middle of the night. She is the first human being related to either the presidency or the vice presidency of the United States who has ever winked at me. I take that back. Sometimes in ads for President's Day sales, there will be a dollar bill in the ad, and George Washington is winking at me. I never buy anything from the stores that believe George Washington would wink at his constituency or that I am going to be impressed by it.

I was as relieved as anybody when Palin didn't crash and burn. Surprised, too, unless she was sandbagging in those Katie Couric interviews, purposely lowering expectations as some people have suggested. The best debate reaction I have seen was provided by Steve Breen, editorial cartoonist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. In this morning's paper he shows a high-jump pit with the bar one foot off the ground. Lying on her back in the pit is Palin, big grin, fists pumped, and she is saying, "Cleared it!"

A couple of days ago on public radio, I listened to a discussion of probability theory, that branch of mathematics in which models can be created to predict the future. I would like to know, just out of curiosity, what the models would say about the effect on the stock market of Sarah Palin becoming President of the United States of America.

I'll tell you this, after the Biden-Palin debate, if John McCain is elected, I will be the man's most vocal champion. I will toast his deeds and health each evening as long as I can still afford the booze, and rise each morning in celebration of the news that he is still alive, reasonably certain in the bargain that another day will pass without him winking at me.

Here comes Willie. It has been an hour now; he promised 45 minutes. He sits, looks me in the eye – I am 100 percent certain he won't wink at me – and says sorry for the delay, but my tires are not in stock. He is going to upgrade me to Michelins, no extra charge. What a simple world it is, in here.