My Old Comfortable Shoes/Car
4/9/1
Good news. My car is almost ready. In fact, by the time you read this, I�m sure I�ll have it back.
After being stood up, or whatever the correct term is when a body shop tells you your car will be done within the week but the car isn�t, and having to drive the little stinky Mitsubishi Mirage over the weekend, I decided that I�d drop off the Mirage and get something better.
After all, I�m only paying 20% of this thing. And that 20% is on a insurance company rate. My Mirage is costing me $4 a day. I should have swapped it for that Infinity I30 they had on their lot Saturday.
The font Arial really doesn�t help the I30�s name. I think I�m actually using Veranda. But in any case, perhaps I should type it i30. You can tell that Nissan doesn�t care. On the back of the cars it looks like a lowercase, cursive L. Who makes an I like that?
Before I drop off the Mitsubishi, I decided to cruise by the body shop to check on the progress of my car. When I get there, I briefly toy with the idea of asking the management, but instead, my appearance occurs to me.
I�m wearing a navy blue pocket T-shirt with blue jeans. And I have a pen in my pocket. I can walk nearly anywhere like this and no one will question me. If I had a clipboard, I could walk into anywhere.
I walk up to the building and then through the gate that a person would walk through if they belonged there and were headed to the bays.
Since I had to look into the bays, and appear to be doing something that wasn�t conspicuous, I walked with purpose and craned my neck to see all the way down the bays. Some had several cars in them so craning my neck was needed.
In the last bay, wouldn�t you know, was a aquamarine 1994 Saturn SC2. My baby. The trunk was open and masking was liberally applied all over the car. The driver door had that gel gunk sprayed on it so nothing could get on it. The rest of the car shined.
Shined because I got an oil change at Saturn the day before and they always wash the thing and put tire black on it. I used to resent the tire black, but I got over it.
The guy there had just finished washing his hands or some thing since he was drying them. I waked into the bay and said �Hey, uh.� to him. He greeted me also and I explained, �This one is mine. I was just seeing how it�s getting along.� (beat) �I miss it.� (beat) �So, how far along are we? When will it be ready?�
�I�m about done. It�ll be ready tomorrow sometime.�
I hope you know what I mean by beat. There is timing to everything. You adapt what you say and how you say it to what you want to say. Well, duh. But in any case, sometimes it�s best to insert a small pause, just to let the person know this isn�t a run on sentence. There was a period there. It�s like expressing a change of subject or �this section of time left silent for the reflection of both what I have said and what I am going to say�.
I drove past the rental place on the way home, mainly because I was already on US72. The only two cars there besides sport futility vehicles were a clone of my silver Mirage and a white Metro.
I�m glad my car is ready. I�m a little tired of the Mirage. The last time I got my car back, I was really happy with the way it handled and it�s brisk acceleration. The stereo isn�t bad either. The CD in the Mirage is nice, but how much nicer if it wasn�t econo-speakers.
Getting my car back is like trying on shoes and leaving without getting any.
A few weeks ago I tried on many, many pairs of boots. We gave up, since I didn�t like any of them. After putting on all those lame boots, putting The Shoes That Will Not Die back on was so comfortable. I even said it out loud to Aisai.
�Man, these are really comfortable shoes.�
I�m currently wearing my new boots. I needed them. I was so sick of The Shoes That Will Not Die. If they would have gotten a hole in them or something, but no, they just get dingier and more comfortable.
I�m wearing the new boots now. It will probably take a good two weeks to break them in. My feet are really uncomfortable. But they look good. They are very matte.