My car despises me. There is no other way to explain how cruel it has been to me over the years. Mainly, there’s the whole funhouse effect whenever I approach the driver’s side window, reflecting a face that can only be described as funeral parlor ready, wearing a fright wig styled by faulty electrical outlet and eggbeater.
Don’t judge me. I spend a perfectly adequate amount of time getting ready in the morning: 45 minutes showered-to-powdered and out the door. Seriously, that’s neither a high-maintenance nor She-Doesn’t-Care-Anymore kind of timeframe (which you WILL recognize when my black hat and sunglasses come out to play). There are days I leave for a business meeting or Date Night feeling pretty darn good about myself, only to have the car take me down. One glimpse and I’m suddenly all blubbery, sputtering with leaky eyes. All because I hear my car’s voice asking, “How could you possibly go out looking like THAT?!” [And you should know that she sounds like a judgmental cross between Joan Rivers and James Lipton.]
Whenever my self-esteem is in the gutter and my insecurities reign supreme, I know that it’s not my wacky family’s fault (tho’ argument could be made that all those years of having my physical faults and shortcomings pointed out, by people who worked in the fitness and publishing industry, probably didn’t help). Nope. Not gonna blame it on them. That darned Victoria. She is my worst critic.
Victoria is what my son named the snooty, imperious sounding GPS guide and as a result, the whole car eventually became known as Victoria. Not Vicki or Vi, because she wouldn’t cotton to that. We call her by her proper name, as she’d certainly insist, if she had a bit more self-expressive language beyond, “Turn left now!” or “Recalculating!” [Recalculating, we’ve come to understand over the years, translates to “Reconsidering your sanity!” and “Re-evaluating your right to operate this vehicle!” among other things.]
It’s not just the image Victoria presents when I approach her from the outside, either. Once in the driver’s seat I try to never look her in the rearview mirror. Because that? Is simply tempting fate. I truly try to use it only to keep track of the vehicles behind me. Honestly, if I catch sight of my nose or upper lip in that baby, she reveals me to be the undergully troll I really am. Seriously. I own a fantastic magnifying mirror with 10x magnification and I scan it regularly for stray hairs and whatnot. But, Victoria? She’s like that snitch living in the boudoir of Snow White’s evil stepmother – she’ll show you things you didn’t even ask for, driving you to murderous thoughts. Go ahead – leave the house. There are no wild hairs. Look in the rearview mirror and – BANG! A minimum of 4 to 6 long hairs that aren’t found in the cat’s color palette and you certainly don’t remember leaving orangutan food out before you left that morning… so, that must be YOUR hair still attached to that angry looking follicle. A hair that practically glows, that’s how magically malevolent her rearview mirror is.
It’s a good thing there isn’t an actual rear view mirror on my car. Objects in mirror are larger than they appear, indeed. I can just hear her snickering about the possibility.
It also doesn’t help that the cheapest gas prices to be found in all of Southern California are down in Azusa and Pomona. Only a vehicle with evil Steven King type intentions would deplete her fuel supply so quickly, that I’m almost tempted to venture down the 10 and 210 Freeways of Death to meet her insatiable appetite. Highlight, italicize and underline almost. The siren-call of Azusa Gas-a-palooza won’t work on me, Mistress Victoria.
This abusive relationship with my car has me thinking that maybe I should just consider moving. You know, look into living closer to some kind of really decent public transportation system.
“Yesssss. Somewhere dark, damp and underground…which, you do realize, is terribly troll-like.”
Oh, pipe down, Victoria. You know I have a garage, right? And now that my ex has moved his stuff out of it, there’s room for you. I should mention — it has really poor lighting, too.
Mwahahaha!…
“In water one sees one’s own face; but in wine one beholds the heart of another.” – French Proverb*
“Your friends, and the lives of those you touch, are a much better reflection of who you are than your car’s warped surface will ever be.” – T. Katz
“I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.” – Joan Rivers
“The definition of genius, really, should be that that person can do what the rest of us have to learn how to do.” – James Lipton
*Wow. Proverb, or advertising slogan?