« forced pause | Main | where's johnny cash? »
the junker
January 18, 2007
life is a lot like the car you drive, or maybe the car you drive really does say something about your life.
don't get me wrong - i admire msot the people who are successfil but don't need a car to say so. some people like a car for what it can do, and that's fine, too. i love to drive, the feel of being in synch with the machine. my ex-girlfriend chandra always thought my mustang convertible was about vanity, and sure, i acknowledged that i did enjoy having something nice. but when i explained to her that driving it, moving smoothly through the gears and pushing the engine at its best, was the same feeling i had on my racing bike when i was younger, she seemed to finally, earnestly, understand.
but aside for the love of driving, a car is about utility, and i appreciate the people that can embrace that.
i love my little acura. it was cheap, now paid for, thanks to the hailstorm that came the month after i bought it. it's as if god paid off my car and said, "hey, kid, keep the change." before that, i had a lexus suv. ialways felt sheepish about it. when people asked what i had, i said i had a toyota, or better yet, a land cruiser. to me, that was genuinely more cool and functional. i honestly didn't want it for being a lexus.
but my acura has had a hard life. i've figured out, too late, that it was probably wrecked and repaired before i got it. that's ok, i guess i didn't bring a pristine history to the relationship, either. i loved driving it - the stick shift makes me feel more in touch with what's going on, a part of something, rather than being detached from the thing that carries me for so many miles. i was, at the time, so detached from so much in my life. just to feel that little more in touch meant a lot.
but the engine blew up on me. the driver's window broke, and it slides down at a whim. i haven't fixd it because i don't think i should until i've finished paying for the new engine i put in it, which doesn;t run well - it idles wildly, the air conditioning no longer works right, it doesn't cool right despite the new radiator.
there was the day i felt shot to hell, hopeless, watching katrina coverage, feeling our failure on top of the failure of my own life. i got careless and swiped a pole.
a couple of months later, i smashed the hood in with my fist.
tonight, harried driving across the city, trying to hold things together. jobless again. realizing things... it took hours to run an errand in the traffic. some people were awful. some were nice, i know, but the awful ones disapponted me, saddened me, angered me, and unable to turn down lamar bloulevard, i floored it and roared down sixth street, wanting it all to be over, to just slam it into a wall and end the car and the life that were becoming mocking mirror images of each other.
i didn't. i screamed, slammed the turn signal lever, it snapped off. it controls the lights, too. stupid, stupid, stupid. but there's my car, in its downward spiral, nearly worthless from a combination of things i can't control and my own mistakes, and my own stupidity, my lack of control and will; and there's my life, the same thing. the car is failing, dying, being killed, and so is this life.
some things aren't worth the salvage value.
Posted by Rob at January 18, 2007 08:59 PM
Comments
But other things are worth it and then some - including you, my friend.....
Posted by: Lorrie at January 19, 2007 09:07 AM
Lorrie's right.
Now to comedy... Please tell me that now you drive with continuous left blinker on!!
Posted by: Mike Wilen at January 21, 2007 03:30 PM
If "you are what you drive" I am in a world of hurt.
While loading kids in the back seat of the truck this weekend I had them perform an impromptu garbage sweep. I told them to just get the big stuff- soda glasses, dried and crusty long sleeve tech T, coffee cups, books and magazines, tow straps and chains, bungee cords, newspaper, all the basics.
Then Will pulls out a month old, half eaten and very cold Hot Pocket. Hot Pockets are a really bad form of calzone- and I had a moldy one sitting in my truck for 30 days...and I didn't even notice it. What does that tell you?
Well, I think it tells you I am not all that concerned about the cleanliness of my car. It also tells you that my olafactory glands don't work at all. It may tell you that I am a PigPen wannabe. In some ways, cleaning my truck was like an archealogical dig. It had the artifacts of activities undertaken, but it was missing the real part of me- the motivation- the reason for being -the values and relationships held dear.
Kind of makes me appreciate archeaology- and question it at the same time.
Maybe we are not what we drive. Maybe it doesn't say shit about us- at least anything meaningful.
Posted by: Tom at January 30, 2007 04:50 AM