Ruby Slipper Whammy

So the car is like the Ruby Slippers, only not a good magic. More a whammy. A neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie whammy. So not good.

I hesitate to merge. My "blow you off the line at the light to get prime bridge position" mojo is wavering. I sit too close to the ground in my pleather bucket seats to powerfully curse anyone out as I  squeeze perilously close to them in a high-stakes lane change situation. I shy away from the high-stakes lane changes. I am a meek and pitiful version of my normally roadrageous beyotch self. So unfair. I did not know about the squirrels. And yet, I pay.

And worse, this car is so ordinary, so unremarkable, so plain and unassuming in every way, that I can't find it is parking garages. Gray. One of half a million produced in a year. I have to remember longitude and latitude numbers before I exit the drivers seat and enter the mall or I may never find it again. I fear being found lying in the parking lot, semi-conscious and dehydrated, key fob in my hand, thumb involuntarily and repeatedly pressing the panic button to give an alarm I can follow like a beacon, and babbling random numbers and store names I have committed to memory in an effort to remember where I've left the boring little auto.

And while the repair takes endless weeks to accomplish, I get reassuring phone calls from the insurance company. "Any day now." And "Our adjusters were out there again today..." All of which
make me very nervous.

I finally get a very nice insurance person on the phone and share my morbid concerns with her. I am afraid the insurance company is going to decide I was negligent and irresponsible in some way and make me pay for my childish lack of mature car ownership. Until now, they've said I am only on the hook for the deductible, which is pricey enough.

"Oh, please," she says. "Do you think this is the only kooky story I've heard?"

I don't actually answer. At least not in coherent sentences.

She tells me about a woman who left a soccer tournament with her family and went directly to the airport for a week-long trip to Disney.  They returned to find that a couple of raccoons had made their way into the car, dug into the upholstery, burrowed into the gym bag, had babies and were quite content to stay until the child rearing period had come and gone. And God only knows how long that takes. Consult with National Geographic, but I think the car is condemned. The feces alone would have made that a sanitary necessity, even if someone were brave enough to open a passenger door.

I am strangely relieved...but still not convinced. It's not like she runs the company. Something is always afoot with insurance companies. I am sure I am being lulled into a false sense of trust.

I am my mother's daughter after all. Curses!