Actually, I\’ve been home for almost an hour now and my feet still haven\’t warmed up and it\’s below freezing outside and my lungs are full of fluid from this latest round of an ears, nose and throat infection, and I\’m being horribly, horribly chickenshit about going back outside into the cold again to wait for triple a to come fetch my car in the off-chance that a garage can fix it before tuesday. I\’m a big, big fraidy cat who does not want the cold to sink back into her flesh (not much flesh to sink back into) and to set back into my bones and throw my bad hip and knee out of whack so that they leave me on the cold concrete floor of the garage, locked up at oddly contortioned right angles in screaming objection. I do not want to go back out there into the cold, no matter how strong I supposedly am, to sit there alone, without heat, for a tow truck that may not come in time. I feel weak.
If there is ever a vulnerable place to hit someone like me (people like me, people like them, those people, them, the working poor, the disadvantaged, blah blah blah), it\’s to take my car. Because my car is not just a car to me. It\’s the only thing I own that\’s worth more than a hundred dollars, and therefore, the only thing I could sell for financial collateral should the need arise. It\’s more than transportation, as it not only gets me to and from all the odd jobs I have picked up over the years, but has also often been the reason why I have been the person to get the job — I was the only one who had a car. My car is often my biggest selling point. Over the years I have learned that a great way to become friendly with people is to offer them rides; by becoming everyone\’s taxi driver, I can become everyone\’s friend. (\”Ooh, I remember her, she gave me a ride home last night when I thought I was going to puke on my shoes. I\’ll buy the next round!\”) Car as collateral. It\’s also been my home when I\’ve had none; the back seat is roomy and I always carry a blanket in the trunk. The trunk is huge. It carries and often stores my work clothes (amazing how many work clothes one has for a job that is primarily done in the nude), transporting them up and down the eastern seaboard. I\’ve put 30,000+ miles on that car in the two years (minus the six months in Oz where it wasn\’t being used) that I\’ve had it. 30,000 miles and I don\’t even have a fucking job or a daily routine or attend classes on campus. My car shows the battle scars (on all four sides and all four doors) from the last two years of my life that I don\’t physically show. My fucking car.
I don\’t even like the damn thing — I\’m even more dependent upon it than I have been upon any other relationship in my life, and I hate that — which is the worst part! I don\’t like it, and yet here I am without it, wishing for nothing but. Until I work next week, I\’ve got $60 to my name and no car which means no way to earn more money and dependent upon hand outs and scaredasfuckingshit. Little scaredy cat girl who can\’t get social services to return her calls and hold her hand until it\’s all better.
Gads, just shoot me, but don\’t take my car! I can\’t afford to take public transportation! I don\’t have the money and my circulation can\’t handle the cold. So just take me, but leave my car alone.
