Oh Betty, You've Forsaken Me. Again.

So I used to drive a Volkswagen bug. Many of you may remember the gleaming red ball of cuteness that looked kind of like a candied apple, that often blasted loudloud tunes from its too big stereo system. Ah, Laela.

From age 16-23 that car got me all around Washington, through deserts and hills, through snowstorms and... college... Sure, I had to jump start it a lot, but it was light and easy to push. And yeah, the locks got frozen shut, more than once, causing me to have to abandon my vehicle and walk from work at 10 o'clock in the snow (Matt rescued me at KFC). And yeah, there were a few instances of something going severely-ish wrong... like when a cylinder burnt out on the way to Puyallup and the engine smoked the 40 miles left to Seattle. Or the time I-don't-even-remember-what went wrong on our drive to Sasquatch that year and we wound up drinking Sparks for five hours on the side of the freeway waiting for the tow-truck to come... but DAMN, that was a good car.

Now don't get me wrong. Betty the Buick has gotten me places. I adore her in myriad ways and constantly defend her honor when folks make comments like, "Man Carrie, you really drive kind of a piece, don't you?" Thanks, Keith. I know you mean piece of art, right? (He doesn't.)

Betty got me from Bellingham to New Orleans in one fell swoop. Wide, bulky, with a "whiskey dent," it's essentially like driving an old-school RV. Through a Colorado storm I thought might be my death, through eerily flat Kansas and creepy North Texas, Betty was reliable. Sweaty. Windows down and cassette tapes blaring, Betty brought me to my new life. She got me through my first year of teaching and some of my second... She carried some of my best friends around during our inaugural Mardi Gras! Wow, we sure have had some good times.

However. All is not well on the curbside front. Betty has not been into starting lately. I turn the key and she's all, "Y'know, no. I don't feel like it." Ugh. Months went by, a new battery, a new alternator (a weird and uncomfortable comment or two from the janitor from work who helped install those things), and things seemed to be fine. We drove to Texas last weekend and everything was good. Then, yesterday.

CLICK.

Today:

Silence.

Betty. I am really not in the mood. I am already so broke I am probably going to have plain potatoes for dinner. I don't mind riding my bike, but my graduate class at UNO is too far away to pedal to.

I hate this stuff because I know next to nothing about it. So car trouble always equals me spending a lot of money AND feeling like an idiot.

Say a little prayer to the ignition gods for me.

In other news, LEAP testing started today and in the afternoons I'm helping to coordinate a mural at the school.
It will be okay.