MemeMachineGo!

Paraffin wax has a lot of uses. It’s used in canning, candle-making, bikini waking, and it’s a good lubricant for some things. Like, for instance, brake cables on bikes.

Since I need to replace my rear brake cable, I was looking for some. I thought it’d be straightforward. But again and again I was greeted by blank stares when I asked for it, as if I were asking for a left-handed frobnistat.

I tried Berkeley’s earthy-crunchy grocery stores, thinking that maybe canning, a former necessity for the poor, might have made hobby-of-the-affluent status. One of them suggested checking their Body Care section. No dice.

Finally, at a hardware store, I was sent to the paint section (where I didn’t expect success.) Someone there pointed out to me a beeswax-based floor polish. Not what I had in mind. Then I remembered I’d seen mason jars at this hardware store, found them, and, lo and behold: paraffin.

At a science fiction convention a few years ago, I heard Harlan Ellison rant about asking for a blotter at a hotel he was staying in, and the young woman he was asking not knowing what he was talking about. And he went on about how stupid she was, without mentioning anything about elaborating “a piece of blotting paper for writing with a fountain pen.”

I thought it was a little precious to expect “blotter” to be instantly recognizable to a modern young woman, hotel employee or no. And maybe the same applies to paraffin.

But it was frustrating that I was stumping these people as to what I was talking about.

I just wonder… what’s next?