Daria and Tyler gave me a car. They had a spare. I don’t know how you have a spare, except I now have two cars. One is My Mechanical Nemesis, which has been trying to die. I’ve mentioned this sleek disaster on wheels enough that people write to ask what new trick I’ve taught my pet convertible. A few months ago, the car began emitting the your-seatbelt’s-off-and-the-door’s-open bell every morning as I passed Johnson & Johnson’s interplanetary headquarters. This is the Clown Car Noise. This is the noise a car makes as Seth Green leans out the driver’s side, wails, “Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaa!” and steers an English sports car with his feet. These are someone else’s sound effects. Then the muffler came a little loose. During my environmentally hostile 1.2 mile commute, I’ve been making such a racket that singing Little Pink Houses at the top of my lungs along with Jack Radio is less shiver-inducing than listening to the symphony of omens my car’s been playing. I made Paulie start the car so we could both lie down in a parking lot to laugh hard enough.
I didn’t want to say anything in the blog because I hate to jinx my further involvement with Motor Vehicle Services, which I jinxed more than a decade ago by getting divorced. An employee of Hell On Earth then told me, “No, you get to change your name once.” This did not stop me from choosing a series of names for myself and using them legally. My passport and every other bit of ID I possess has my fancypants last name. Attempts to get my driver license to match failed. Before Thanksgiving, my plan was to stay home, lock the door and talk to nobody. I enjoy talking to nobody, with the lovely exception of Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul. He’s witty and urbane.
Tata: I’m not coming to your house.
Daria: You’re coming to my house!
Tata: I’m not coming to your house.
Daria: Come to Thanksgiving and get A NEW CAR!
Tata: Do you lack…pie?
As I put on my coat to leave their house, Tyler puts documents and a set of keys in my hands. He’s an Allstate agent. He says, “Don’t hit a deer until after it’s on your insurance. Also: your aunt borrowed the car and still has the papers.”
Someday, a doctor will step forward and say, “That’s when I knew, officer. I should have reached into my authoritative-looking medical bag and pulled out a prescription pad. I should have written her scrip for an All You Can Eat Valium Buffet. But I’m only human.”
The next morning, which is to say the Friday after Thanksgiving, I called NJCure because it didn’t seem strange that a business might be open for business on a business day. After six attempts to navigate the phone tree and leaving progressively more frustrated messages, I accepted the idea that my insurance company’s employees were all out increasing the Gross National Product, and I should suck it up for America and go get the paperwork. Auntie InExcelsisDeo promised to put everything in her mailbox, in case she left the house before I got there. I drove down Route 27 to South Brunswick, toward her very old home in the very old woods on Old Road. Where I turn, I found a detour sign and no recognizable detour. About a mile later on Route 27, I pulled over and called her house. The machine picked up.
Tata: Oh Auntie! Is there…maybe…something you neglected to tell me? Your street doesn’t seem to be where I left it. Did your street move and leave your house behind?
When I turned around, which is the polite way of saying when I took my life in my hands by crossing two lanes of traffic in a vehicle SUV drivers don’t stop to pick out of their grilles, I found a strange bald pre-construction spot, and Auntie’s house no longer surrounded by woods hundreds of years old. I felt sick. I collected the documents from the mailbox, rang the doorbell, got no answer and couldn’t leave fast enough.
Calls to NJCure on Saturday didn’t help either. Monday morning, I finally got a human on the phone. The human asked lots of questions I mostly couldn’t answer, like how many cylinders my new car has. I did not offer to go outside and count, but after that conversation, I could now make a beeline for Motor Vehicles, and I did.
Their system was down. I registered my car and got new plates. I could not change my address. I was given a slip of paper with a phone number on it, like MVS was selling me a used washer/dryer. Reasonably victorious, I went to the university’s parking department, where I paid $4 for a new parking sticker. While I was there, I thought I might pay for my 2006 parking “privileges” – which in New Brunswick is a viable defense in a homicide case, and if someone steals your parking space, no jury will convict you of assaulting him with a crowbar, and the jurors would know because they had to do the same thing on the way in. The nice man at the counter said that went on sale on 1 December. I said, “You charged me $4 for a new sticker I can use for 3 days before I need to buy another?” He giggled nervously.
In the meantime, I discovered Daria and Tyler hadn’t renewed the registration after July, so with or without the paperwork, I’d been driving around in a forest of moving violation tickets, if caught. Perhaps that’s where the woods went. It is extremely important to note that driving the new car is a pleasure compared to driving the car that was trying to die. My stomach is not in knots. I arrive at my destinations without a hint of Mellencampiness. There’s no frost on the inside of my windshield. Okay, it took me two days to figure out how to turn off the windshield wipers but since I know Daria never reads manuals I bet they were on the whole time she drove it.
I have two remaining issues:
1. It’s white. I – forgive me – am Frau Blue Car. [Lightning strike, thunder cracks, horses whinny, yeah yeah.]
Siobhan: Except for the fact that it’s white, it is a very stylish car.
Tata: Paulie says we should take it into the shop and make it all artistic by gluing stuff to it. I laughed so hard I snorted when I thought of pulling into Tyler’s driveway with my car covered with art.
Siobhan: Oh, yeah, stuff glued to a car. That’s not tacky. Well, unless it’s elbow macaroni painted gold. That’s very elegant.
While I contemplate the idea that one good rainstorm might transform my automobile into a shiny side dish or a pedophile’s dream ride, my other problem is terminology.
2. I’m a Jersey chick.
Trout: What kind of car is that? A Trans Am?
Tata: A Grand Am.
Trout: It’s a Trans Am! Admit it!
Tata: …Grand Am…
I’m telling!
Tata: Trout keeps saying Daria gave me a Trans Am. I say it’s a Grand Am, because if it were a Trans Am I would have to buy hairspray and crack my gum.
Siobhan: Can’t we call it a Trans Am? That would probably drive Paulie nuts. You can’t chew gum – you have braces.
Tata: Ergo, it must be a Grand Am. Did I just say “ergo”?
Poor Impulse Control 