Between Me and My New Car, by Nancy Chek

It may seem like a small thing to many people, but it’s a miracle that I’ve finally discovered how to get Arial to be my default font, which saves me at least three key strokes (and a heavy groan) on every new Word document. There are things that I cannot change, such as my birthday odometer clicking over another number once a year, and there are things I can--like getting someone to repair the hole in my kitchen ceiling (done) or getting rid of that bloody Cambria font (done).

I am just waking up to the number of things I put up with--either because it is “so unfair” that I have to fix it (someone side-swiped my car while it was parked at BWI so the left mirror is hanging there like a broken wrist) or because it’s so much trouble in my mind to fix it or pay to have someone else fix it.

I have been carrying 10 old paint cans in my trunk for almost a year because I don’t want to take the time to go to the junkyard.  Every time I go over a speed bump I hear them make a half-hearted attempt to escape: Ka-whunk. Face it, China White, we’re never gettin’ outta here.

The unresolved items in my physical universe serve as a reproach, letting me know, in that insistent way things have, that I may think I’m the boss of them, but thinking carries no weight in that realm.

For example, I want a new car (one reason I keep putting off fixing the limp mirror). What I’m doing instead of buying one is telling everyone how much I dislike negotiations with dealers, watching movies instead of doing research, paying for vacation courses, eating out a couple times a week, putting off taking some other financial steps that would improve my income, etc.

I sort of love this: it takes all the mystery out of why something is or isn’t happening.

And suddenly I see that in a year I’ll have finished paying off my home repairs, and I can take my friend Vin to car dealers with me so he can do the obsessing part and I can be charmingly ruthless and make the car happen. WaHOOO!


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