manual accomplishment

so, when things break, you should fix them. before they get worse. 

I'm very good at maintaining everything I own.  Except for my car.  And my ignorance and neglect has created a honda shaped monster.

A few months ago (ok, maybe like a year ago) the knob on my gear shifter stick thing just flew off.  I thought it odd, but didn't pay much mind to the situation and stashed the various loose pieces in my glovebox.  When the weather was cold, it became unpleasant to push down the pencil sized metal rod in order to put the car into gear, so I started doing some research into how to reassemble a gear shifter knob thing.  To no avail, mind you.  The little rod pops out of wherever the heck it's supposed to be every once in a while and you have to really wiggle and push to get it back in.

Then 2 weeks ago it really popped out.  I tried and tried to get it back in for accumulative hours!  The car still drives, but doesn't think it's in park when it really is.  Therefore, my key will not come out of the ignition, therefore the doors don't lock.  Therefore, the battery dies. 

As I headed out to my car last week to go to work, I got in and found what I deductively-reasoned to be a  dead battery.  I called both of my room mates, a few of my room mates' friends, my ex-boyfriend's parents and neighbors and friends and couldn't find anybody available.  So I scrolled through my recent text conversations to try and find a person I have been in contact with lately that would maybe help a sista out.  I came to a particularly painful message feed from several months earlier.  The last time I communicated with this person, it was an hour long text fight with like 4 bazillion YELLING CAPITAL WORDS. And I am not a yeller, let alone a text yeller.

 But this person is pretty damn good at everything in the world, including cars.  So I called, and the person came right over and jumped my battery like a saint.  A classy well-dressed version of a gorgeous mechanic man saint.

This is a person whom I have adored my whole life, and I regret more than anything ruining the friendship we had with my over-anylytical self-sabotaging incomplete-communication-skilled self.  But I just can't find words when this person is around. So staying true to myself, I mumbled and blushed and eventually shut down like an awkward 7th grader.  But, it was really good to see that person again. Really.

And then they left and I started driving to work
Then I hit a basketball sized boulder.

Then I put on my spare tire like a girl; hair tied up in a topknot, gloves to preserve my manicure, and black smudges on my face by the time I finished.

Then I drove to the nearest tire store to get a new tire, found out that aforementioned boulder had poked big a hole right through my rim and it would take almost a week to order a new one.

So I gave up and just went to work and back with the donut.  Have you ever driven with a donut? For the record, going 45 in a 65 does not make you friends.

That night I stared into the fireplace -sans fire- and almost thought about crying..  But then I got interrupted so I just went to bed.

The next day I had no way to get to work, except a 1994 Toyota RAV4 that my ex-boyfriend's sister left behind when she went on her mission.  It's a manual and I don't know JACK about manual transmissions.  (In general, I always think any vehicle I am driving is going to, without warning, explode, snap the axles and flip over 12 times and leave me upside down  in a fiery wreck watching my tires roll down the street past me through my shattered windows.  Add an engine I don't know how to operate to my vehicular complex, and I am a white-knuckled trembling mess.)

But, with an unexpected rush of gusto, I Googled a step-by-step how-to, and got myself to work, 50 miles away.  I was so proud of myself every time I got the car to start going, you couldn't wipe the glee off my face with a Sham-Wow.  I even figured out how to downshift (because the car shook like crazy when I tried to slow down and the idea of shifting down just came to me, like an aha! lightbulb) and I didn't stall until I attempted to park.  Seriously, I have never felt so self-accomplished in my life. Ever. 

Moral of the story: fix things, ahem, or get a professional to fix things, when they break.  Otherwise, they will break more.  Then that one bitch Life will throw you some bad luck and your life will be over, until you pull yourself up off the ice-glazed asphalt and teach yourself an important life skill, which in turn fortifies your will to live and support yourself like a big girl with big girl pants that also can still be friends with people that used to hate you but maybe don't anymore, or forgot, or something.

The end.

PS/Follow-Up: My great uncle who builds cars has a connection with the auto people at UVU, and they are going to try and fix my car tomorrow.  Thank heavens for rad family members and my grandpa who finds a way to fix everything, everytime.