Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Shiftless and shrieking

What does it mean when the entire electrical system in your car stops working at it starts to shriek every time you shift gears?

We may never know, because it acts that way only when I'm driving. When my mechanic tried it, the car worked normally--a little cranky, but plenty of electricity and no shrieking.

He's a magic man, my mechanic. He drove into town and met me at my car just to see whether it was safe to drive or ought to be towed...and then it rewarded him by depriving him of work. I drove it home without a problem, but I don't trust it. I suspect that my mechanic will see that car again soon.

If the car had been the only thing that didn't work right today, it would have been enough, but no: my brain wouldn't work right, and neither did my ability to communicate, thanks to the lack of a phone in my new office and some internet connectivity problems. My attempts to finance my son's fall tuition also ran into a brick wall (thank you, worldwide economic crisis!), and an unexpected storm interrupted the gardening and weed-eating. And now my arms are not working. For that I blame the weed-eating.

So now I come to the end of the day having accomplished little that I set out to do but exhausted all the same. I just need a break. Maybe that's what my car is trying to tell me: "I'm tired of the constant motion. How about a day off?"

This evening I'll do my best to emulate my car: I'll refuse to function--and I may even shriek.

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