out of this world

I had a car scare yesterday. OK, I’m always scared of my car; it’s a rickety bucket of bolts that leaks oil, makes rattling sounds, and doesn’t have air conditioning or power steering. And the manufacturer is now out of business. It doesn’t get much better than that. But yesterday my coolant temperature gauge needle wiggled all the way up to the red “HOT” warning and I saw my life flash before my eyes.

I pictured my car exploding and my limbs flying in all different directions, blood spewed all over 108th street. I called Steve and projected my fears onto him. What a lucky man he is. If I’m about to die, I want his to be the last voice I hear. Not some moron screaming for me to get off the road. Steve calmed me down, I made it to work, called our mechanic, then took it to Jiffy Lube. And as you’ve already guessed, I didn’t die. I continue to live my life on the edge by driving my Saturn that could very well one day blow me out of this world.

Hey, I’m a risk taker, what can I say? Perhaps to you a car overheating doesn’t qualify as a life changing event, but it scared me enough to get my priorities straight. I realized yesterday that I need to leave Steve my Blogger password so if I do die suddenly, he can write my obituary on here. Maybe something like this:

Holly was a very opinated person who had few friends. She died in a shitty car because she never became successful enough to own anything else. She worked as a paper pusher which made her even more cynical. She aspired to be a writer one day and leaves behind 18 months worth of blogs, six pages of a novel, and 18 rejection letters from literary magazines. She loved Big Brother, puzzles, pasta and ice cream. She hated everything else. Especially cats and the screaming kids in the booth next to us. She is survived by her husband and dog, the dog has not yet noticed.

See how depressing that is? This must be why I’m still alive: it’s time to get busy living.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.