Thank God For Sundays

My poor, poor car is a piece of shit. I moved to Los Angeles from Memphis, and driving in the two cities is a completely different experience. When I first arrived, I didn't have the rhythm of driving in Los Angeles down. As such, I ended up getting into three or four rear-end accidents my first nine months here, and it didn't help matters that I had a cell phone (which I've since gotten rid of) at the time. Besides raising my insurance premiums to an astromomical rate, these accidents left the front end of my car a complete mess. The thing is, my car was totally drivable. The only real problem is that my hood didn't properly close anymore. The mechanism would still catch, but the hood had a tendency to wobble when I drove on the freeway. (This becomes important later in my narrative.) Because of my depression and my perpetually shaky financial situation, I never bothered to get my car fixed.

Now that I'm trying to be more engaged in my life, rather than just doing the bare minimum to get through, fixing my car became one of the things I decided I wanted to take care of. I took the car to a repair shop across the street from the store where I work on the weekends to get an estimate. The owner's son has been a customer for years, and I was hoping that this connection would keep them from screwing me over too badly. (Although after dealing with the guy's father, I'm not sure that this is the case.) Then I called my insurance company to see if they would cover any of the repairing costs. (It has been five years, after all.) They told me that they would send someone out Friday (i.e. yesterday) to the repair shop to do their own estimate. I made arrangements to be a little late at my law firm, which turned out to be a bit of a hassle with my boss. I dropped the car off and had to walk a little over two miles to the train station to take me downtown to work. Since I wasn't able to pick the car up before they closed last night, I had to walk a little over three miles (in the rain) this morning to get it before working at the store. The owner told me that, given the value of my vehicle, the insurance company might just deem it a total loss, rather than paying to fix it. I'd just have to wait until I heard their decision next week.

Today I spoke to my father about my car situation, and he offered to help me in getting a new car by co-signing a loan. But I'm 36-fucking-years-old, and I feel I should be able to handle something as fundamental as basic transportation on my own. I took it upon myself to contact DriveTime about buying a used car because they have a reputation for financing people with bad credit such as myself. I made an appointment for this evening at their lot in Torrance (where my friend Jonathan lives) to see what kind of rates they could offer me and what vehicles they had available. Very adult and mature, don't you think?

I headed to the South Bay after work. Just as I had merged onto the 110 Freeway from the 101 interchange, the catch on my hood decided to give way! The hood flew up against the windshield (though without breaking the glass, by the grace of God). Amazingly enough, I managed not to panic. I was able to pull over to left-side of the roadway without getting into a crash and killing myself or, more importantly, someone else. I even managed not to scrape my car against the concrete median, which was quite a feat considering I couldn't see out of the fucking windshield. I couldn't open my door, and going out of the passenger side wasn't an option as a hundred cars were whizzing past me at sixty miles an hour. I had to roll down my window and climb out of it. I could shut the hood, but it was so bent out of shape that I couldn't line up the locking mechanism enough to catch. Finally I ended up tying it shut with a shoestring from my own shoe. I drove it to my law firm, which was nearby, and phone my parents and Jonathan. Finally I drove it home taking surface streets. Now my car is completely undrivable, and I don't know what I'm going to do to resolve the situation.

Back To My Old Tricks

By all rights, I should go down on my knees and thank God that I survived my car crisis completely unscathed. But I don't have the strength of character to react as I should. Caring is a burden. Now that I care about my life, I feel overwhelmed by all of the things that I have let slide over the months and years that I need to fix. Caring hasn't freed me from my personal problems. It has only energized my will to fight and struggle against them. But I'm still left with the feeling that I have to overcome all of these obstacles alone.

I stopped at a store on the way home I wrote a check that will bounce or at least cost me a $25 overdraft fee for a lot of alcohol and a pack of cigarettes. When I told my friend Jonathan (who is a sometimes annoying voice of uncompromising reason) of my intention to drink tonight, he reminded me that I have given alcohol up for Lent. He suggested that I focus on the fact that I "did everything right" during my emergency tonight and not succumb to the temptation. But I just don't care! I honestly believe that God didn't create me for 24/7 sobriety. Technically, you are allowed to indulge in the things you give up during Lent on Sundays because Sundays aren't counted in the forty days as they are the Lord's day. And technically, at least by some traditions, Sunday begins on sundown of Saturday night. I know that my sense of entitlement is an affront to commitment I made to God, and tomorrow I'm hoping to speak to my priest for spiritual guidance. But for now, I just want to drink until I "can't feel feelings anymore" and until once again my life seems manageable.