Money Money Money Money....and Cars.
10 July 2003-12:10 a.m.
Ah Money. That ever elusive stuff. How I wish I had more of it. Not a lot more, not Bill Gates, disgustingly rich amounts of money. Just enough so that I didn't have to worry about it. No not even that is true. I just wish I had enough that an emergency could just be that and not a crisis. I wish I had enough that I didn't need to ask my parents for anything.
waht brought on this bought of wishing? My car. I love my car. I have a little blue 1992 Mazda Protege. I call her Molly sometimes. She has gotten my everywhere I;ve needed to be. Gradually she is falling apart. When I got her, she had a cracked windsheild, and a dent. Then her trunk began to leak. Now anything in the trunk will get wet unless it's in a plastic bag or the laundry basket I keep in there. With all the rain we've gotten lately my car has a permenant smell of mildew. Lovely. Then the a/c broke. Since it would be 900 dollars or so to fix, it's stays broken. Not bad in the winter. Not so great when you live in the south. So I sweat. Then poor MOlly got broken into, and the back triangel window was broken. Dad fixed it with a piece of plexiglass that lasted almost two years. (wow is that right? yeah I guess it is.) The plexiglass has now taken to falling out. I'll have to duct tape it in place. Both my lap belt holders are broken so when you reach down for the lap belt you have to reach all the way down to the floor and grope for it. The broken pieces of plastic gouge your hand. The sunroof is broken, thankfully in the closed position. And the driver's side window will at times decide that it doesn't not want to roll up all the way. All this was okay. Yes I have to check my oil a lot. Yes she has 162,000 miles on her, but she runs.
Now my ignition switch is dying. At least Dad thinks so. I put the key in and it will not turn. It's like when your stearing wheel locks and you can't move the key, you have to jiggle the stearing wheel. Only jiggling doesn't help. It's been sticking for about a month, on and off. Tonight it got really stuck. There I was stuck in the Olive Garden parking lot, in Atlanta, with no way to start my car. Thankfully Daddy was there (yes in this case he's "daddy" and not "dad" girls understand this) He got it running. Right now my car is sitting in my little driveway unlocked with the key in the ignition. If I turn it all the way and take it out I may not get it to start again. So the key will remail in the car. I took out everything I would care about loosing. I sincerely hope someone steals it. I don't think this will happen however, because nobody would want it.
So to tie this all together I'm wishing for the money to get a new car. Not even new-new, just new-to-me. With less than 100,000 miles on it. I know I'm a dreamer. Maybe I'm wishing for enough money that getting the ignition switch fixed wouldn't be a crisis. Not when faced with the possibility of having to move at the end of the month if we can't find a roommate. Or paying an extremely large rent for a month. Either of which is not going to be pretty.
Oh well. Whining about it won't help. At least I have a bike.