Of car seats, "Mission: Impossible," and pediatricians

Judy Collins is almost 70. Who knew? She's performing in Birmingham tonight with the Alabama Symphony. "Alabama Symphony? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?" See what I did there? I pre-emptively defused any gratuitous slams on my home state. It's blogging judo, is what it is. Besides, the Alabama Symphony is a fine organization. Its banjo section has been honored at Merlefest, and the washtub basses will send chills up your spine.

Yes! That is twice I've verbally zigged after setting you up for a zagging. My misdirection skills. Let me show you them.

The Jakester's last pediatrician appointment was a week ago, so we took him to see the baby doctor (who looked so precious in his "Chicks dig me" onesie [rimshot]). Pediatricians in general deserve instant sainthood status, but our doc is beyond perfect. But let me just complain about one thing. Baby Doc (not that Baby Doc) has a brand-new office. There's a spacious main waiting room, complete with saltwater fish tank so all the kids can play "Spot the Nemo." There's also a couple of tables with the built-in game things so that kids can amuse themselves without running away with the toys. In the main waiting room, there are two flat-screen TVs playing kiddie fare all day, and there's another in the well waiting room. It's all just wonderfully comforting. And that's what has me torqued.

When I was growing up, long about the Martin van Buren administration, folks didn't take their kids to the pediatrician, they took them to the doctor. That's what he was, "the doctor," and he treated everything from colic to freak barnyard amputations. The nurses wore white hose, nurses shoes, and those beyond-useless pillbox hats. The doctor's office smelled like the Lucky Strikes that were still smoldering in one of the ashtrays and alcohol. It was as sterile and discomforting as a DMV office, and we loved it! We couldn't get enough of it!

But I digress. The pediatrician told us that we needed to bump Jacob up to the next size of car seat, since he had gotten big enough for it. We still needed to keep him rear-facing, though, which was okay with me. I want my son to experience that "Rear-facing seat of the Country Squire station wagon, looking at the back side of road signs" feeling I had growing up. Modern cars have this LATCH system, which makes it tres easy to install a car seat. A couple of clicks, and the child is set for transport. Unfortunately, Cosco, the manufacturer of the car seat we had bought for Jacob, decided to

a) make the instructions--which I was reading!--as obtuse as possible
b) make the illustrations--which I was consulting!--as obtuse as the instructions
c) make the prescribed way of threading the LATCH system as difficult as humanly possible. If the instructions difficulty was X, and the illustrations difficulty Y, then the threading difficulty was XY to the power of infinity.

And it's not like you can take any shortcuts. This is not new sheetrock for the garage, it's the system for securing your offspring in the event of a crash. So I persevered to the end. As a payoff, the seat puts Jacob higher up than the previous one, so he has a Louis XIV, "King of all I survey" viewpoint now, which he likes.

I still couldn't get the cupholder to stay on, though.

Your Friday weirdness comes from Dr. Forrest's Cheeze Factory. It's "Mission: Impossible"'s Barney Collier, Greg Morris, singing numbers like "For Once in My Life," "The Twelfth of Never," and "The Look of Love." Bonus cool points for the cover photo of Greg exhaling Pall Mall smoke through his nostrils. Extra-bonus cool points for faithful readers if they knew that Greg is the father of Phil Morris, aka Jackie Chiles on "Seinfeld." If you didn't know that, it's egregious, outrageous, irresponsible.

See you Monday.

Update: Until just a minute ago, I had no idea that "Pall Mall" was pronounced "Pell Mell." At least it was according to this ad, which you've got to see, if for no other reason that the over-the-top expression of the woman who puffs on a Pall Mall at the end.