How to lose a car in 10 days

Published 4:57 am Thursday, June 25, 2009

By Staff
I am in no way new age. I am not Zen. I don't like yoga because it's too slow. I don't do meditation because I don't need to take time to think and breathe when I can think and breathe all the live-long day. And I never got through Eckhart Tolle's 'A New Earth' or any other Zen/mind/body/spirit related self-help book.
It just goes against my grain.
Coming back from the film festival a couple of weeks ago, I hit the highway home on a witty romantic comedy high. I had spent the majority of the day walking around aimlessly after I missed the start of the first movie on my schedule and chalked the day up to a run of bad luck, when I sat down to see 'Answer Man,' starring Jeff Daniels and Lauren Graham. It was an absolute delight and I was uplifted.
In that way that only a good movie can make possible.
On the drive home, I cranked the volume on the stereo – tuned in myPod, with its perfect playlist of road rock: Tom Petty &the Heartbreakers, The Nadas and Jack Johnson.
The sun, was setting behind me and the air was wet but cool. I rolled down the windows and let it fill the inside of the car. Dared the Zen and took it all in.
Driving home that evening, I thought to myself, this must be it.
This must be living in the moment.
Then a deer shot that moment all to hell.
I sat with a darkening highway stretched out before me and a dying cell phone.
After the deer, it wasn't until after all the necessary calls were made that my situation hit me. If the car wasn't moving … and it was making that funny smell … that could only mean that it would either need to be fixed or replaced. And I was not prepared to deal with the worst-case scenario, a car that would yield little in worth and be completely D.O.A.
And then I was the one shaking.
Again, a reason why I want to live in the city. There are no deer in Manhattan.
The worst thing that can happen in terms of transportation is you break a heal or a shoelace, get a crooked cab driver or get stuck on a subway next to the guy with the funny smell.
On the highway that night – none of that seemed bad. I would gladly have traded my stand on the highway's shoulder for the stinky subway guy.
I watched my poor, broken and critically injured automobile, the only other mainline of my independence aside from the crapartment, get loaded onto the back of one of those big flatbed trucks… The apathetic tow truck driver gave a very small chance of survival and took it away before my very eyes.
The days that followed didn't get any better. They involved rounds of calls to AAA and repair shops that lost my car, were unable to service my car and wouldn't get back to me about the condition of my car.
In life, there are certain situations, which differ for everyone, that by their very happening – throw each and every one of our insecurities and our flaws and our mistakes right up in our face. This was mine.
Suddenly, Miss Independent was relying not only on borrowed cars, but bad customer service at AAA to give her an answer and no-nothings at the body shop to speed up the process. My lack of organized paperwork hit as I frantically searched for my title.
And the whole thing drips with the panic that accompanies a lack of fiscal responsibility.
It was a week long naked in front of the classroom nightmare.
In my version of 'The Deer Hunter,' fighting with AAA was my sucker punch.
As a 29-year-old woman who has always taken care of herself … situations like these are the ones when you just wish there was a guy, who would get on the phone with his big male voice, put his big male arms around you and get all the answers. And that only opens a door to a whole lotta introspection that I won't even touch on.
The idea that I wasn't being taken seriously simply because I carried a certain set of chromosomes was infuriating and frightening all at the same time. No Zen here.
My car wasn't the only thing to desert me in the last week. So did my patience. Ten days later, I had answers and a list of what to do next.
Though the saga still isn't over, I know now that I have to say goodbye to my car. The car that actually pulled me out of my first bad auto-experience when my first car put me deep into the quicksand of negative equity. I'd paid this one off. I'd felt it a monumental accomplishment. It was my moment. And now it was gone.
I know there will be another car … but the rush of so many fears all at once has left me stuck in a moment I have no wish to be in. I can only hope that my next four wheeled friend sees me out of it and gets me closer to where sanitizer on subways is the substitute for seat belts and no deer dare to roam…
In the meantime – just for good karma, and because it couldn't hurt, I've started reading 'Zen &the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' and am slipping in mugs of decaf green tea in between my morning, afternoon and evening coffee.