You may recall that this week I have been driving a rental, due to Doug’s bad day in the parking lot.
The first time I got into the car was on my way to work. Without taking a moment to familiarize myself with it, I turned the key and drove. Halfway down the street, I realized there was country music spewing from the speakers, and I had no idea how to change the station. (Doug has decided he now likes country, which is grounds for divorce. But I digress.) Teeth gritted, I drove on toward the first traffic light, which would buy me just enough time to figure out the radio.
Every light on the way to work was green. In all my years in the work force, from my first job bagging groceries at Big Y on, this has never happened.
Halfway there, I realized Doug had left the car seat heater on from the night before, and I had no idea how to turn it off. As I fumbled with every button I could find, I wondered what would happen if I crashed a rental car. In that case, I assumed, I’d have to rent a rental for my rental. For the next mile, I pondered the logistics of it all.
With my ass now on fire and country music reverberating in my head, a thought even more horrific than my rental wrapped around a tree popped into my head: what if, in the grisly aftermath, I was wedged within the wreckage, with no way to freely move my arms, helplessly waiting for Life Star—and the radio kept on playing?
I imagined the helicopter landing, paramedics rushing to the scene with their Jaws of Life, yelling over the whir of propellers. “Don’t worry,” they’d shout, as I lie there gasping, lodged in the smoldering vehicle, speakers vomiting with twanging guitars and drawled out tales of lonely waitresses in truck stops, daddies who can’t afford Christmas and cowboys pining away for just one more dance.
“Make it stop…make it stop…” I’d choke, but no one would listen. They’d just keep on trying to pry me out of that car before it spontaneously exploded, oblivious to the real matter at hand.
You people have your nightmares about falling, being chased and showing up at work naked. Let me have mine.