@#$%!!!

I was planning to write a blog entry today filled with quaint suburban observations brimming with Christmas charm and simple elegance. It was going to be sweet and charismatic without being saccharine. It was going to be funny in a refreshingly non-bitter sort of way, and it was bound to make you feel warm and comfy, and maybe a little sleepy.

The VenJetta had other ideas for the blog.

The car has been out of the shop for a week and half. Foolishly, I assumed it would not need to go back until at least late December, but this morning I was reminded yet again why it’s so satisfying to watch cars being compressed into little cubes of metal by those big crushers in the junkyard.

When I left for work this morning, I was late. That in itself is not unusual, but I neglected to notice that an overnight storm had dumped a thick slab of snow onto the VenJetta. The snow was not wet enough to cause a terribly exhausting ice-scraping session (it’s too damn COLD), but it was just powdery enough to snake its way up inside the sleeves of my coat and wrap itself vindictively around the skin of my wrists that was not covered by my $1.49 one-size-fits-all stretchy gloves. By the time I got into the car (COLD!) and finally wrestled the car up the slippery hill and out onto the highway, I couldn’t feel my fingers.

Eventually the heater finally started to thaw my extremities, and I figured I could probably make it to work with about ten minutes to open the store. I exited the highway, and thought about all the things I could get done at work today if business was slow. I could smell the hot coffee in my travel mug, and was looking forward to wrapping my hands around it when I got to – what the…? I was stopped at a stoplight at the end of the exit ramp, and the car was shuddering slightly. I turned down the radio to listen to the noise. It was quiet, subtle. I couldn’t hear it so much as feel it, and anyone not so well-acquainted with the inner psyche of the VenJetta might have missed it. But I could feel what the VenJetta was thinking, and one thought passed through my mind: No. NonononononononononoNO!

One second passed. Two. And then…utter quiet. The car died.

I looked around. I was surrounded on all sides by cars that had just left the highway and were waiting for the light to turn. Oh, lord. I hit the clutch, turned the key, tried to turn the engine over. It tried to start (good damn thing since I just had the damn starter replaced LAST DAMN WEEK), but just when I thought the engine had caught, it whimpered into nothingness. After about the fifth try, I put my hazard lights on.

By this time there was a line of about eight cars behind me, and the light had turned green. Hazard lights don’t appear to represent anything in particular to the average American driver, so I had to gesture frantically for the cars behind me to go around. Four people shot me dirty looks as they drove by in their completely normal and un-haunted vehicles, like it was MY IDEA to set up camp in the middle of an intersection. I rifled through my purse for my stunningly well-used AAA card and called for emergency roadside assistance. I half expected them to see my account number and say, “Oh, hey Melissa. Shall we send your regular driver?” Instead they said, “Where would you like us to tow the vehicle?” and I very nearly told them exactly where I wanted to put the car.

After being assured that I was top priority on AAA’s list of people to rescue, I started to make phone calls to find someone to work for me. I called the only other employee whose phone number I had stored in my cell phone, and left a somewhat hysterical message on her machine. Then I called the owner of the store, who is, cruelly, on a cruise in St. Bart’s, and left a message there for no other reason than to dampen her day. Then I scrolled through the rest of the entries in my cell phone, and wondered aloud why I thought it was necessary to have Pizza Hut and the local radio station on speed dial, but I didn’t see fit to record the phone numbers of my other coworkers. Oh, well. The store would just not open. Sorry, teeming masses.

Now I had been sitting in my car without power or heat for about ten minutes. The seven degree weather was seeping into my car, and my toes were starting to lose feeling. No sign of the tow truck yet, and I was starting to wonder if my hazard lights were actually working because people kept pulling up behind me and putting on their annoyed faces when I gestured for them to GO THE HELL AROUND.

I was pretty sure I could hear the VenJetta laughing at me, and that disturbed me, so I thought about who else I could call to take my mind off it. I was freezing and cranky and miserable and did what anyone would do if they just wanted to bitch at someone for a few minutes: I called my mother.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, honey, how are you?”

“Oh, I’m peachy. My stupid car died at an intersection in the middle of Omaha and I’m blocking traffic and waiting for the tow truck and I can’t feel my toes and I hate this car with the fire of a thousand burning suns.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. I’m supposed to be opening the store right now, and I can’t get a hold of Kathy, and I don’t have Lexi’s phone number, and Gina’s at her other job, and Becky’s in the Caribbean. The store’s just going to have to not open today.”

“Do you want me to come pick you up?”

“No, I’ve already called Triple-A and I’m hoping they arrive soon because I’m getting sick of explaining the meaning of hazard lights to half the Omaha population.”

“The car just died? It just stalled?”

“It stalled at the light and won’t start again.” To punctuate my point, I turned the key again. The car started. “HOLY CRAP.”

“Your car is a piece of shit.”

“Yeah. Mom, I gotta call you back. The car just started and I better get it out of the intersection before it falls asleep again.”

I practically threw the cell phone onto the seat and peeled away from the light. Trying not to press my luck, I somehow managed to avoid stopping at lights all the way to work. When I got to the store, I called AAA and told them not to send the tow truck, citing “supernatural forces” as the reason for cancellation.

I don’t know what’s going to happen when I try to go home this afternoon. When I locked the car this morning, I’m pretty sure the horn went “HA!” and I have no idea what further adventures the VenJetta has planned for later.

Now I’m sitting here at work, trying to regain feeling in my toes as the increasingly grating 24-7 Christmas music plays on the overhead radio. Somebody keeps singing, “Do you hear what I hear?” Well, if you’re hearing the sound of a couple tons of gears and metal siding being crushed into a cube the size of a shoebox and then being wrapped in shiny paper and ribbon and put under my tree like the best Christmas present EVER, then yes, I hear that.