Crossed Wires and Fried Cars

It’s no Katrina.

That’s my new mantra these days whenever anything goes wrong, awry, or straight down the toilet. It helps me keep my perspective when any problem enters my screwy little world. Like just now when every word I’d written in this blog for the last 2 hours just disappeared. – and it was really good stuff, too. A fairly intense personal tragedy for a writer, but hey, it’s no Katrina.

It seems to work fairly well most of the time, allowing me the necessary interruption of my personal angst to get a grip on what’s really important. Too bad it has no effect on the resulting self-righteousness. Of course, there are other times when I just belly-flop into the oozing muck of a full-blown week-long pity party where I want it to be five o’clock all the time.

Not that I’m a drinker as this implies. Why fill valuable stomach space with all those watery intoxicants when there is still food on the planet? My personal drugs of choice are Ben and Jerry’s Fudge Brownie Frozen Yogurt, Oreos, and original real Coke (the soda, not the powder).

Most of my writing takes place under the influence of these same “drugs.” Alas, I feel the winds of change and intervention annoying those weird little hairs on the back of my neck. Or maybe it’s just the drugs…

Next week I have a doctor’s appointment at which I will probably be told that my high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides mean a change to a healthier diet and lifestyle and a prescription for oral diabetes medication – real drugs.. This is your brain; this is your brain on glucose. Now, where’s the fun in that? I know, I know, it’s no Katrina. However, I have changed to a new doctor some 30 miles away on the off chance that I will get lost on my way there and avoid reality a little longer.

About a month ago I had a lot of work done on my poor old car to try and keep her on the road for at least another year – even went out and bought her a new set of 4 for $88 tires. One of the repairs involved installing a switch on my dashboard to manually control the no longer functioning cooling fan to my engine. This meant that I have to switch the fan on when driving and off when I stop the car so my battery does not run down. Hey, this is what it takes to keep a 20-year-old car running, okay? It still ain’t Katrina.


So, anyway, a couple of days ago I am sitting in the parking garage of the resort hotel where I work, chowing down on fried catfish from Bojangles right out of the pasteboard box (a biscuit? where are my hushpuppies, you Yankees?) trying to get it all eaten in time to clock in for my shift. Apparently fried catfish causes memory loss, because when I came out 7 hours later, my battery was deceased. But…it’s no Katrina. I call security and ask them to come jump my car. No problem.

By the time help arrives, it has slipped into the wee hours of the next day, but I have a magazine with me so, no problem. I raise the hood of the car, turn around, and the whole thing comes crashing down on the support arm, leaving the hood not-quite-open and not-quite closed. Mostly not-quite-closed and stuck. No, no, no Katrina. But with a little elbow grease and a lot of grunting we get it opened again and I climb into the driver’s seat ready to start the car. I notice the security dude looks a little confused, but he finally untangles the jumper cables and starts attaching them to the two batteries.

Watching him through the tiny crack between raised hood and windshield, I see him reach into my car and start to attach the last clamp to the remaining battery terminal instead of grounding it to the car frame. Before a word can leave my mouth to stop him, he incorrectly attached the clamp and sparks fly, flames erupt, and smoke rolls. I jump out of my car to avoid becoming more fried than the catfish and yell at him to take the clamp off. I am staring down into the smoky interior of my engine compartment when the guy asks me – as God is my witness – if I want him to try it again.

I politely refuse his kind offer and thank him for his time as he drives away. No, really, that’s what I do. Get up off the floor and stop laughing – I’m not done yet. Billowing clouds of smoke are still rising from my car and a few remaining sparks penetrate the darkness like distant lightning before a rising storm. The heavy odor of ozone penetrates my consciousness and morphs into…is that the smell of seawater? The howling winds of change whip around me. At least 30 feet of incoming storm surge roll over me and I scrape into the sandy bottom with no idea which way is up. I am face to face with the Undertoad.*

Hey, hurricanes happen.

So, anyway, today I make arrangements to have what is left of my car towed. I call up my New Age mechanic to let him know the car is on the way and bring him up to date on what happened. Now this man is nothing if not ultra-conservative with his speech. After I manage to get through my entire tirade without crying, he waits just a nano-second before saying, “Oh boy...”


Oh boy? That’s all he has to say? Now I’m losing it. I ask him what that means. He says the security guy probably crossed the cables, charged my electrical system in reverse. Great. I ask him if that is bad. He meditates for a while, then says maybe not, maybe it is only a relay, not the entire wiring harness. I explain that the sparks and flames started at the battery and traveled back toward the firewall. He finishes the entire repertoire of Astanga yoga poses and gently ohms, “Ohhhh, boy...”

I think I am in deep trouble here. No car, no way to get to job. No job, no…everything. My mantra fails me. What I need is some new phrase to help me through the hard times, bring me back to center.

Oh, boy…


*For those of you not familiar with The World According to GARP, the undertoad is a child’s misunderstanding of a dangerous undertow.

It's What You Do At The McDonald's That Determines Your Destiny: Hurricanes, Back Pain, and the Loss of a Child

Don't start asking me which McDonald's or whether it is built on a vortex or something -- this is a metaphor. It has nothing to do with the restaurant or a time warp. If you want to start searching for truth at your local McDonald's, go right ahead. You gotta find the answers somewhere. All I know is that today my daughter, Jessica, and I drove around a good portion of Wake County, North Carolina, only to find out we had make a large circle and ended up back where we started and no closer to our planned destination.


Now, Jessica hasn't lived in this area but a few months and is still learning her way around by anchoring her shopping expeditions to familiar landmarks -- in this case, a crossroads McDonald's restaurant. Since she is on a lot of drugs right now due to a back injury, her thoughts tend to misfire on the way from her brain to her mouth. So while she meant to say that which way you turn at the McDonald's determines which direction you'll be going, what came out was "It's what you do at the McDonald's that determines your destiny."

And where am I going with this? Well, I'll tell you: I have no idea. Right now neither direction nor destiny seem to hold the upper hand. If we have learned nothing else from the events of this past week, hopefully we have a fresh perspective on the dead ends and detours that choice and fate insert into our lives at the first signs of complacency. Some say that life itself is change. A lot of us would rather things always stay the same. This is the point where someone should shout out the warning to be careful what you ask for.

And while I'm still circling the "driving down life's roads" metaphor, let's talk about those warning signs along the way. You know the ones:

Left Lane Closed Ahead
Left Lane Closed 1/2 Mile
Left Lane Closed 100 Yards
Evacuate All Low-lying Areas
Katrina Sets Sights for New Orleans
Landfall Expected in 8 Hours
Sleep Deprivation Major Cause of Accidents
Bend Knees When Lifting
Slow Down, You Move Too Fast
Life Is Short
Stop and Smell the Roses
A Little Child Shall Lead Them


Okay, I detoured from actual road signs, but that just proves my point, doesn't it? How often do we or others wait until the last possible moment to move over into the continuing lane? What fear in us makes us need to get ahead of everyone else, endangering not only ourselves, but those around us? We don't always react to the foreshadowing of a lane change, much less the clanging bells and flashing lights of an impending life change. And it isn't the oncoming change of direction itself that determines the course our destiny takes, it's the way we respond to that change.

It is not the hurricane warnings that change our lives, it is the choice we make to either evacuate to higher ground or live with the consequences of the storm's chaos. It is not the first twinge of discomfort poking through the weeks of fatigue that puts us flat on our backs, it is the choice we make to either slow down and rest or keep up the mad dash that results in constant pain and incapacitation. It is not the inevitable death of a terminally ill child that rips apart the parental heart, it is the choice made to either let nature take its course or fight back with treatments that may or may not prolong the length, if not the quality, of life.

There is no right or wrong here, and these are not the only choices in any of these situations. My point is that no matter what life throws our way, it is what we do with the shake-up that determines our destiny, our destination. I cringed as I typed that since I am an adamant proselytizer of the "life is a journey, not a destination" gospel. But the events of this week have put a major crease in the roadmap of my life as well and now I find myself back at the McDonald's, wondering in which direction lies my destiny. And while I wait, I take comfort in the blue sky overhead, the amazing bank of summer color flowering against the lushness of green grass, the restorative elixir of ice water, and the wisdom that I can't actually be lost if I don't know where I am going.

In seeking the higher ground of peace above the chaos of the storm, I can listen to the voice of stillness instead of the cacophony of fear. In the reflection of another's pain, I remember to take care of myself as well. And from the very, very brief life of a child, I find affirmation that life itself is a spectacular, wonder-filled moment of being -- the twinkling star in the darkness that broadcasts our light to all who encounter it.

But it's also short, so what are you waiting for?


For Maddy...whose dying taught us all so much about living and loving and letting go