Image courtesy of Bertknot. Licensed under CC BY SA.

My car–the hybrid civic which someone once described as “atypical color (one word, not two)”–is no more. Last week, coming back from an out-of-office lunch, someone left turned into the car and drove off.

This was the first time I’ve left the office on my own for lunch. Clearly, I never should again.

Thankfully, I am fine and insurance is covering it, but I got word over the weekend that the car has officially been declared totalled. This means that my next week or so will be full of a few of my least favorite things: legal paperwork and large consumer purchases. Hooray, anxiety sweats.

It also means that I have to spend this afternoon grabbing all of my personal possessions from my car. I tried to do that this weekend, but the car was still elevated on a platform. The folks at the repair place offered to pull everything out for me, but I said I’d come back. It’s possible that they think this is because I have something I want to keep hidden from them–it’s not.

It’s just that, between the suitcase of fabric that’s been in the trunk for 6 months, my graduation tassels, several Christmas CDs, and puppy pee pads (don’t ask), I don’t know where everything is in the car anymore. It seemed best to handle things on my own.

Beneath the layers of anxiety and a desire to just Not Have to Deal With This, there is some excitement. After all, I might soon have a car in a normal color that is readily identifiable by others, rather than “bluey-green, but kind of silver and–wait, no, definitely blue.” A car where the bumper isn’t slightly dented due to an unfortunate incident with one of those yellow concrete bars from a parking lot. A car that doesn’t stab me in the leg, ever, because its side trip isn’t unpeeling and sticking out and a sharp, knife-like angle for god knows what reason.

That last one, in particular, is exciting. I’m pretty sure that if I have tetanus now, it’s the fault of that siding strip.

There are of course worse ways to spend one’s time than looking at auto loans. Know thy financial self, etc. Besides: I’ve finished all of Call the Midwife, and at this point I need something quiet to ease myself back into the emotionally lower-stakes world of actual life.