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.