Given that I had just finished 2 weeks straight of 12 hour work days, I figured I'd have enough of a happy paycheck to finally pay for all those repairs I needed on good ol' Markmobile (I'm not very original when it comes to naming cars). So I had the brakes and tires changed, and finally figured out why the service engine light was on for the past few weeks (and it cost me about $200 to fix). Things are looking good, I had another huge paycheck coming my way, and it was all going to go towards replenishing my savings and setting aside funds for when I make the big move.
Cue a garbage truck. Parked in front of my driveway. Now here comes me, trying to maneuver around it. Seems like an easy enough task. I'm careful, I check traffic on both sides, but what I don't realize is that I'm turning too sharply, and before I know it I'm driving into those forklifts that lift dumpsters. Luckily, it only hit the corner of my door and near my windshield, creating a huge dent, a bent door, and a shocked me.
Doesn't look too bad from the picture, but it's the nature of the damage that makes it the most painful. Had the lifts missed the door and went through the door and window only instead, it would be a simple matter of replacing the door. But take into account the huge dent on the body, and now the whole left side of the car has to be replaced. Then again, had it missed the door and went through my (open) window, my face could have been sliced off by a huge sharp piece of metal.
But at least I wouldn't have had to pay $1,900 to fix my car, right?
So yeah, there goes my next paycheck, a good chunk of my savings, and some of my sanity out the (now very dented) door.
But I try to look at things in a positive light. I've been relegated to taking the bus to and from work as of late, but in all honesty it's not that bad. There's something oddly liberating about not having a car in LA, given the fact that car culture thrives here and getting around can be a bitch without a vehicle. But being car-less, I suddenly feel free of the possibility of parking tickets, moving violations, car accidents, traffic (to some extent), and yet more repairs. I mean, you drive to and from work, you turn on your ipod, you go on autopilot and you fail to notice the world around you. Sure, I've been driving through the streets of West LA for years now, but this is the first time in years that I feel like I've really experienced them.
But that all aside, yet another expense decides to slap me in the face. So remember a couple of weeks ago how my Sansa decide to die on me, leaving me mp3 player-less? Well I decided to start using my 4th generation ipod again, and it worked fairly well, until...
Ah, damn, dude, would you look at that. Even the animation of the dead ipod is hella sad.
Man, for me it always seems like when something in my life breaks, everything else decides to break down at the same time. Reminds me of the time my girlfriend broke up with me a while ago. The next day my rice cooker stopped working.
27 days.
"Come on Mark, lie to me, tell me everything's gonna be alright after graduation"
-JCB
yeah, i always thought that dead ipod picture was one of the saddest things i've ever seen. glad to know you're alive, though.
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