Car Talk
Wednesday morning I read Leo Babauta’s article The Body as a Vessel For Living. He compares our bodies to a car- a car is a vehicle we use to experience a journey, but not the journey itself. Likewise, we can see that our bodies aren’t who we are- they’re a vehicle for our life experiences. That doesn’t mean we can’t polish our cars or try to improve our bodies, but our attention should be on the scenery we’re moving through or the adventures we’re having. Ah, what a nice article. Funny that I should read it on a day where we went on to experience a RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF CAR STRESS. Get a load of this… First, the AC in my car stopped working several days ago. Anyone who lives in Florida knows that if your AC isn’t working in the summer, you might as well just drive your car to the junkyard and leave it there. Driving in the heat is absolute torture. No problem though- I have Wednesdays off so it was the perfect day to bring it to the dealer. And it’s under warranty- what could possibly go wrong? Ho ho. We’ll get back to that in a minute. After we left my car at the dealer, my husband and I stopped at Trader Joe’s. As he opened his car door, a gust of wind suddenly caught it, and it hit the car parked next to us. We got out of the car, and a woman barreled towards us yelling “You just HIT MY CAR with your car door! It’s a BRAND NEW PORSCHE and now it’s DENTED! You DENTED MY CAR!” Yep, there was a tiny dent- but the way she yelled at us, you would think she had found us demolishing her car with a sledgehammer. I assured her that we didn’t do it on purpose- I mean, obviously- and she calmed down enough to exchange phone numbers, but boy- she was a total jerk. Because I was afraid my husband would end up throttling her, I thought it was best to have her communicate with me. She apparently went directly to a bodyshop and got an estimate, and forwarded a copy of it to me- $880. Well, I didn’t think it would be cheap. Someone drives a brand-new Porsche into a bodyshop, and they’re not going to give them the bargain rate. But here’s the capper- she texted me “And of course I’ll have to rent a car for 2-3 days.” Oh, REALLY??? That’s funny, because I could see on the estimate that the job would take five hours. At this point, we called our insurance company and filed a claim. It will cost us $500 (that’s our deductible) but it’s worth every penny- and the thousands we pay to Allstate every year- not to have to deal with a woman like that. So let’s get back to my car. The one that is now STRANDED AT THE TOYOTA DEALER. They can’t work on it until they get the approval from the warranty company, and for some reason that’s taking several days. We thought that maybe we could take it back until they’re ready to work on it- because we really need two cars- but they said no, because sometimes the warranty company sends someone out to inspect the car, so it has to be there. If we take it back we’ll be starting over from square one. Hmmm! Maybe WE’LL be the ones renting a car for 2-3 days. Or maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. Stay away from cars from now on… I could just start running everywhere. Or riding my bike. Yes, I can picture myself showing up to work, ready to give a massage, drenched in sweat. That probably won’t work. In all seriousness, what would I do without running? I’m so glad I get to go for a run this morning, first thing, before anything else stressful can happen. When I’m running like that I’m reminded that none of the rest of it really matters. What’s the most frustrating car experience you’ve had?