Category Archives: Cars

Thank GOD for car insurance

Posted on by February 25, 2020

but you stopped reading after you saw $5 and determined there were 3 place settings at the table after 5, didn’t you? I sure did the first time the adjuster said it. And he said that once the body shop gets into my car, the number is almost sure to go up.  Be still my heart.

Although the other driver was at fault, it’s unclear (still) whether the DRIVER’S COMPANY’S insurance (remember, he works for a body shop) covers this, or whether the CAR OWNER’S insurance covers it. It’s probably the DRIVER’S COMPANY’S. But while we wait to figure that out, I’m going through my insurance, because I want my damned car back before its value drops so low that an estimate that high means “we total the vehicle”.… Read the rest

Three wrecks

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I was 19 and lost. I didn’t see the stop sign until a truck struck my sedan. No injuries, but the car was totaled. I thought I was taking my friend to research.

I was 21 and new to Kentucky. I stopped at the light, but the car behind me didn’t. She thought the light was yellow. I thought I was taking Mom to the castle.

I was 35 and composed. I had the green light, but the other car didn’t see me. He thought he was moving a vehicle. I thought I was taking my kids to swim.… Read the rest

The blue and the white (cars)

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Boy, do I know how to hold the red flag up for Karma! Last November, I wrote about having only ever been in two car wrecks. Karma thought that wasn’t fair. Because now, I’ve been in three. I refuse to use this for my Trifecta entry. RE. Fuse. Oh hell, I’ll probably use it for Trifecta, but with more details and stuff. This one is just the nitty gritty of ‘how I spent my 14th day of my kids summer vacation. Everyone is fine, in both cars. My grandfather said that any accident you can walk away from is a good accident, and I have to say I agree with that assessment.… Read the rest

Crash

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I’ve had two car crashes in my life, both many years in my past now. The first one was one hundred percent my own fault. Trying to find the museum center in Cincinnati, I drove all around the base of Union Terminal without ever discovering the actual entry road. I had a passenger, a fellow student at the college of Mt. St. Joseph. We wanted the history museum. I can’t remember her purpose, but I was looking for newspaper images of the 1937 Ohio River flood for a short story I was working on.

I got turned around in this warehouse district.… Read the rest

Satellite Radio Part I

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I’ve learned a lot from my new radio. It’s given me a much stronger grounding in top forty basics, and it’s about a thousand percent better than Pandora. Not to mention, it’s available in my car nearly all the time (except under concrete).

I’ve always been rather notorious for mishearing and misinterpreting lyrics. Scott had a great time convincing me that Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” was not actually “Red Hot Love” when we first started dating. Also that it was by a group called Golden Earring, whose name had passed me by. (And did you know that Golden Earring also did “When the Bullet His the Bone”?  … Read the rest

Hyundai

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Well, Sam didn’t poop at all yesterday, in spite of some forty five minutes spent sitting obligingly on the pot. I couldn’t bring myself to molest him with that damned enema a fourth night in a row, and so he had to have two tonight before producing a nasty hard mass. I suppose it’s time to bypass the pediatrician  and go find a shit-ologist to see what is up with my baby’s ass.

However, there is one bright spot. In the midst of tonight’s ordeal, Caroline had to fend for herself for quite awhile. At one point, I was sitting on the bathroom floor discussing poop with Sam, and Caroline wandered around the corner holding an old book.… Read the rest

Rainbow Flag

Posted on by February 25, 2020

For a number of reasons that will be dealt with later, I’ve been under an unusual amount of stress lately. The raw effect of this for my family is that I’m more short tempered than normal, and much less tolerant of my kids’ perfectly normal (if perfectly obnoxious) behavior. My students can’t see me in person, so they don’t experience my deep sighs when they ask questions with answers I consider obvious. Unlike my kids and husband, they never receive responses like, “I don’t fucking know. Jesus Christ, do I look like the Dali Lama?” To keep these moments to a minimum, I’ve been letting the Jester Queen have a bit more free rein.… Read the rest

In cars

Posted on by May 3, 2011

We’re getting ready to buy a car, and I feel awkward admitting it, but we’re comfortably enough in the middle class that we can afford to buy the vehicle brand new.  Until I met Scott, a “new” vehicle to me was “less than ten years old with fewer than 100,000 miles on it”. I grew up in a family of used cars, and the only new one we ever owned was obscenely expensive and broke down more frequently than the used ones it supposedly outclassed. 

The first car I recall us having was a 1968 Oldsmobile. I may be wrong about the car’s year, but that’s how I remember it.… Read the rest