Conversation With My Car
KATHY’S CAR: Please, can I go back home? I hate it up here. The bus service here is pretty good. You’ll be okay.
KATHY: Why?
KC: Well, for one thing, you keep hurting me. You drive over things.
K: I didn’t know they had great big logs lying around the parking lots! I was upset that day because I had asked a really stupid question in class. And how was I supposed to see a divider that comes up high enough to scrape your guts but not high enough for me to see it at night??? I took you to get fixed, didn’t I?
KC (accusingly, near tears): And I got towed. Do you know how humiliating that was? In public? With all the other cars watching? They could see my --
K: I am truly sorry about that and believe me, I didn’t need to get soaked for $160 to make your bail, either. Do you know what that fee and the cost of repairs did to my budget, how many times I had to eat beans this semester as a result?
KC: I have a pretty good idea, in fact, yes.
K: Look: I will try to do better. I will exert every effort to park in the paved lots and not the rocky ones; I will NEVER leave you vulnerable to towing again, and I will give you a nice big drink of Stop Leak every month. Please stay. I need you.
KC (sniffling and thinking): Okay. I’ll give it one more semester. But things have to improve.
K: Deal.
===============
I have to laugh bitterly when I think about complaining about the parking situation back at Rollins. I didn’t know what parking hell truly was until I got here. It’s just me and 39, 999 other eager scholars jockeying for about 800 spots every day. Once this fact soaked in, I decided to park off campus, walk to it, and either catch one of the buses that circle it or hike up myself (depending on how many anvils I had in my backpack any given day, since the campus is built on a hill). When I got towed I was incensed at the injustice of it all, then extremely sorry for myself. Wending my way to the parking office (and note: while nowhere at Rollins is truly far from anything else, the opposite is true here: wherever you have to be is miles away), I managed on the way to work up some tears which I immediately sucked back into my eyes upon meeting the no-nonsense, heard-it-all manager who gave me a brisk “Mm-hmm, you don’t need to tell me, honey, why do you think I bring a lunch? Do you think I park for free because I work here? Uh-uh, honey. Same all over,” as she gave me the address of the company holding my car hostage.
KATHY: Why?
KC: Well, for one thing, you keep hurting me. You drive over things.
K: I didn’t know they had great big logs lying around the parking lots! I was upset that day because I had asked a really stupid question in class. And how was I supposed to see a divider that comes up high enough to scrape your guts but not high enough for me to see it at night??? I took you to get fixed, didn’t I?
KC (accusingly, near tears): And I got towed. Do you know how humiliating that was? In public? With all the other cars watching? They could see my --
K: I am truly sorry about that and believe me, I didn’t need to get soaked for $160 to make your bail, either. Do you know what that fee and the cost of repairs did to my budget, how many times I had to eat beans this semester as a result?
KC: I have a pretty good idea, in fact, yes.
K: Look: I will try to do better. I will exert every effort to park in the paved lots and not the rocky ones; I will NEVER leave you vulnerable to towing again, and I will give you a nice big drink of Stop Leak every month. Please stay. I need you.
KC (sniffling and thinking): Okay. I’ll give it one more semester. But things have to improve.
K: Deal.
===============
I have to laugh bitterly when I think about complaining about the parking situation back at Rollins. I didn’t know what parking hell truly was until I got here. It’s just me and 39, 999 other eager scholars jockeying for about 800 spots every day. Once this fact soaked in, I decided to park off campus, walk to it, and either catch one of the buses that circle it or hike up myself (depending on how many anvils I had in my backpack any given day, since the campus is built on a hill). When I got towed I was incensed at the injustice of it all, then extremely sorry for myself. Wending my way to the parking office (and note: while nowhere at Rollins is truly far from anything else, the opposite is true here: wherever you have to be is miles away), I managed on the way to work up some tears which I immediately sucked back into my eyes upon meeting the no-nonsense, heard-it-all manager who gave me a brisk “Mm-hmm, you don’t need to tell me, honey, why do you think I bring a lunch? Do you think I park for free because I work here? Uh-uh, honey. Same all over,” as she gave me the address of the company holding my car hostage.
posted by Kathy at 5/07/2005 01:48:00 PM
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