For eight years it was a source of discontent.
I complained that it wasn’t cool enough, it wasn’t new enough,
it wasn’t nice enough.
For eight years it was a source of discontent.
I complained that it wasn’t cool enough, it wasn’t new enough, it wasn’t nice enough.
I didn’t take care of it like I should have and I didn’t place enough importance on it.
I took it for granted, and that haughty indifference has now come back to bite me – big time.
On Tuesday, I got in a car accident. Although no one got hurt, it was bad enough to obliterate my car, scare the bejesus out of me and the poor woman who was unlucky enough to be at the intersection of San Felipe and Fallon road a little after 9 a.m., and place me in one hell of a predicament.
All of a sudden, I don’t have a car to grumble and growl about – I don’t have a car at all.
The little green Toyota Corolla I denounced for so long is no longer. It now sits in my driveway, the entire front portion in tatters – a constant reminder every time I look at it that I done screwed up, but good this time.
It’s no secret for anyone that knows me that the phrase financial security has yet to make it into my vocabulary.
Because of this, my depleted bank account, which instead of being used to pay full-coverage collision insurance had been the source of Louis Vuitton purses and Gucci sunglasses, now prohibits me from buying a new car.
Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. It prohibits me from buying any car – even a run-down piece of crap car.
I kept meaning to put collision on my plan, but that would have meant more money spent on car insurance and less on the fun stuff.
To be perfectly honest, the fact that I might actually get in an accident and total my car and be stuck with nothing never occurred to me.
Some people are responsible and always do the right thing and never find themselves up the creek without a paddle. Ostensibly, I am not one of those individuals.
Usually, I just tell myself I’m spontaneous and unpredictable, which makes me fun to be around.
Like most unfavorable characteristics, this is just a lie I tell myself so I won’t feel like an idiot when stuff like this happens.
This time it’s not working so well. I still feel like an idiot, I’m depressed about the situation which makes me no fun to be around, and predictability is something I want to incorporate more and more into my persona with every passing second.
So after all is said and done, I’m left with what used to be a reliable car that’s now worth about 50 cents, and embroiled in a tug-of-war between my dad and my pride.
Pops, who has been pretty good about dealing with my financial shortcomings in the past, has once again come through for me with this one.
The only problem is that I tend to be a spoiled brat when it comes to material things, a trait I hate to admit to but is true nonetheless.
And the coming-through-in-the-clutch car is, in my opinion, even worse than my past-despised-but-now-revered Corolla.
It’s a car I don’t think is cool enough, new enough or nice enough.
It’s something that I haughtily turn my nose up at because I’m too good for it. Me, who has $7 in her bank account and has been eating straight tuna out of a can for the past three days because one, I can’t afford food, and two, I don’t have a car to load my stupid groceries in.
These last statements could be exaggerations, but they’re probably not that far from the truth.
And the truth is that my loving father is trying to give me a car, free and clear, and (for the time being) I’m too full of pride to take it.
The truth is that if the lady in the Honda had left for work one second earlier, there is a definite possibility I would be writing this from a hospital bed, or not writing it at all.
The truth is that I’m lucky to be alive, and there could be worse things than driving a car that I think is a piece of junk.
But if anyone out there has a new Beemer or cute little convertible they feel like parting with for cheap, please feel free to give me a call.
Please.