in which i thank my lucky stars

How dependent is Middle America on cars? We know. We’re so dependent we wage a war on a terror that didn’t really exist. But nothing really makes it hit home until your car is up on the back of a tow truck. This happened to me once during a summer in college, the first summer I stayed away from home and in my apartment all by myself. I had gone to get coffee for everyone in our hippified musician wannabe or groupee (except me, of course) office. I had four mochas in hand when I turned the corner from the store and there was my car hooked up to chains and dangling in the air. I had to run a block down the street to a cash machine in order to get my car out of immediate hock.

This morning, it all came rushing back. I was late, way late, the latest I’ve been all year and I blame it on the ever-lingering sore throat that had me up at 5:30am. I stepped outside rushing and thinking only of driving fast through the main roads and side streets. And then I saw three cars up on trucks and dangling from chains and one cop car. My stomach lurched for those poor people and I thanked the dear lord that when I came home last night there was one last space in the parking lot and I avoided the street and the city’s random stupid “towing enforced” street cleaning. I was so late I would have had to call in sick or something had one of those cars been mine. Thank God for lucky stars, I surely used mine today.