Grateful Blog: Day 53: Today was one of those crazy near-Spring days. The wind blew all night and all through the morning and the rain was followed by sun, rain, sun, rain, sun, rain, sun, rain…This morning I went to work, trusty old straw Stetson on my hat—keep the rain off you know, and the first thing that happened when I got to my first job and out of my car was the wind blew it right off my head. Right into a black, gritty curbside puddle. Uh huh. I figured not the best omen to start the day but it was probably nothing. Then, driving around to take a picture I put the power window down and it started going up/down/ up/down/ up/down/ up/down pretty much all by itself till it stopped…DOWN. I drove around all day like that. It’s a power window and I tried every trick I could think of, but at 163,000 miles and moving it up/down/ up/down/ up/down/ up/down 50 times a day for 9 years was apparently its limit. Of course I had to take the freeway several times and the wind blew the rain in and I got pretty wet. You know, to match my hat.
Late afternoon and off to my guy at Nissan named Toby who fixes these things and after tearing into it a bit says ‘Well the motor is dead. It’s a cool $600’. And given the 50 times a day I use it to take pictures out my windows to make a living it’s probably worth fixing. Or at least it should be once the driver’s seat dries out. So there I was leaving the car for a few days (no point in driving it) and I was cleaning my ladder and flashlights, tape measures and tools out the back when I came across a box of my brand new CD, ‘Ash and Bone’. There’s not a lot miles on it yet—still in the package even. I offered one to Toby who said he’s meant to come to the CD release but yeah, when he called it’d already sold out. He eagerly took the CD and then said ‘Hey, least I could do is get you a Rent-A-Car’. At that moment, I was damn Grateful for that. Thanks Toby!
So yeah, if you see a guy wearing a muddy Stetson driving down the highway in a fire engine red Kia Soul. That’s me. Really wish it had a cassette deck though. I’d love to put my ancient copy of ‘Rubber Soul’ in just for fun…
