motherscratching piece of crap

Posted January 27th, 2005 by Michelle

Right. So. I’m having Trader Joe’s White Cheddar Popcorn and a glass of Brunello di Montacino for dinner. I have had a helluva week and I intend to go to bed slightly drunk and sleep as long as my sleep-hating brain will allow.

My only other almost full-time employee has been sick all week, so we are behind on every deadline. The artist I’m being paid to profile in a frilly local magazine has decided to come out with her mental illness in my article. I still don’t know how we are going to continue to pay the bills. It’s been an incredible lesson in patience, but by golly, I think I might be learning something. I called everyone and told them our deadlines would be pushed back a week and to stay the heck off our cases. I hunkered down and got all my least appealing work out of the way. And I’ve managed to have a good week.

So… so then. A few weeks ago I got a letter from the DMV. I thought it was my new tags; rather, it was a request for numerous certifications and lots more money. Turns out that when my car was sideswiped in the parking lot at work, and the estimate to fix the car was more than the car was worth, the insurance folks totaled my perfectly useable car. Which meant that the DMV requires me to get a new smog check and a brake and light adjustment certification. I have to turn in my plates and give them my license number and give them lots more money, too. Can you see where this is going? No? Well, I’ll tell ya. I took my car for the smog check this morning, and $60 later it passed. Next it went to the certified brake and light adjustment guy, who called to let me know that my car was over $600 away from passing: cracked headlamps, no license plate lights, no reverse lights, a busted converter of some kind in the brakes (so THAT’S why the “brake failure” light has been on for five months!) and various other goodies. The mechanic was almost apologetic, and told me he didn’t want to continue inspecting the car because I’d already rung up $140 in labor charges, and he knew that what had to be replaced was getting near the worth of the car.

So, yeah. I’m out $200 already, plus the $50 I spent a month ago (before the insurance report hit the DMV and $50 was all I owed to register). With the welding (the welding! My car needs WELDING in two places!) work, plus the extra fees owed at DMV, I now need $903.70 to fix and register my car. Oh, and did I mention that my tags expire at the end of this month? HA HA HAHAA HA HA!

It gets better. I don’t know if I’m going to try to attempt to fix the mess I have, or if I’m going to attempt to find a new old car. But I decided to take myself to the movies tonight, and just as I was leaving, the sky opened and starting dumping cold rain on the valley. No matter, I thought, since Jon recently tightened my windshield wipers (which, before being fixed, used to fly clear off the windshield and get caught on my rear-view mirrors). I climbed into my trusty 21-year-old vehicle and safely arrived to watch Annette Bening be brilliant on the silver screen. I got out of the movie, dashed through the rain and got back in my car, only to find that the fuse had blown… again. The fuse, that is, that controls a) the windsheild wipers and b) the horn. Well, I thought, at least if I can’t see someone, they won’t hear me when I’m about to hit ’em.

What was I to do? It was after 10 PM in St Helena, where everything closes at 4:59 PM. Most of my friends have forsaken me and left Napa Valley; Jon was in the city, Dad in the desert. So I pushed the wipers off of the middle of my windshield, where they decided to die, and drove home. It wasn’t so bad as long as no cars were coming from the other direction, but when they did, the water and lights and dark combined to make an ugly, blurry mess of my windshield. I don’t know how I made it home in one piece, but I did, and now the storm rages ever harder outside.

Today, Jon said, “Well, everyone has to have this kind of car experience once in their lives.” I said, “Umm, this, I’ve already done.”

But this too, shall pass, as my glass of Sangiovese Grosso passes down my throat, and I’m feeling much better.