I am pretty new at traveling on the bus with a bike – I’ve probably gone through the process a handful or so of times. It’s not that difficult to do, but it did take me several mantles and dismantles to really get the hang of. I just had to watch other people, and then do.

I rode my bike 2.5 miles to work on Thursday but was not quite feeling the trip home, so I decided to use my beautiful monthly bus pass and travel on public transit with my two wheeler. After arranging my bike and getting on the bus I was greeted by the middle-aged man with gaps in his smile who told me he was “just about to get off the bus” to help me get my bike on the rack, and that he would have walked home from there because it was only six blocks away.

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s nice of you.”

I then sat two rows ahead of him and faced the front.

“Yeah, I’m getting off at 26th Ave,” I heard him say from behind, obviously talking to me.

“You’re probably going all the way up to 70th Street, aren’t you?” He asked me.

“Yes,” I told him, even though it wasn’t true.

“You probably live in Westminster, don’t you?” he then inquired.

“Yes,” I lied to him again, as is a wise thing to do when a crackhead on the bus inquires about the geographic location of your domicile.

As promised, the passive good Samaritan got off the bus only a few blocks up the road, but not before causing a little bit of a commotion.

First he exited out the back door and shouted, “Bye, bye Mr. Bus Driver!” as he stepped off.

Once outside the bus he ran to the front door and told the bus driver that he never received a transfer ticket. The bus driver seemed to think the guy was pulling a fast one, but reluctantly handed him a transfer ticket.

“Thank you,” the guy babbled. “I’m a good man and an honest person, I wouldn’t lie to you.”

By now a few passengers were laughing and rolling their eyes.

“Thank you!” he repeated. “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I’ll see you again,” he promised the bus driver as the door slammed in his face and we drove away.

I got off at my stop which was just a little further up the road and lifted my bike off the bus like a champ. I rode it 0.8 miles to my house, ate dinner and then consumed what was to become the very last serving of chocolate peanut butter ice cream that I will ever have again in my entire lifetime.

Apparently I’ve developed some sort of intolerance to the chocolate/peanut duo. But that’s another ‘capade TBD…

Taking the bus in the snow is not fun. They drive very slowly and are completely off schedule. If you have to deal with connecting busses you better not have anything too important planned, because you WILL be late. Winter public transit tends to be cold and messy, and a word to the wise is to stand as far away from the street as possible while waiting for a bus, because car tires like to splash up lots of wet and slushy material onto the sidewalk (and any object that happens to be in its path.)

One little (positive?) recent bus memory that I love and find myself re-telling time and time again occurred a week or so ago around 11 AM on the Colfax route. My interest had been piqued by a white man in his mid-60s whose long hair, laid-back demeanor and rugged look made me think he had probably spent many years living on the beach or in the mountains, or both.

This guy was very talkative and it was apparent through eavesdropping on his conversation that he was a regular on the line. As luck would have it, he ran into an old buddy and they began catching up across the aisle, loud and clear for anyone to hear. I listened as my guy started to tell his friend how he has been out of work, and watched as my guy turned away from the conversation and stared out the bus window into the sky, though still talking. I was wondering what the fuck he was doing, but figured it out when he looked back to his buddy and said he had to “call a guy at high noon about a potential job.”

The unemployed guy on the Colfax bus was hoping to score a job by judging what time he called the hiring man off the positioning of the sun in the sky. Part of me thought this was ridiculous, and part of me loved it. High noon, I’m going to remember that one. I hope my bro found some cash flow…

…And then there was this guy.

This guy got on the bus at the stop in front of a grocery store in my neighborhood one day, and you should have seen him struggle to load his “cart with groceries” onto the bus. I don’t know why he didn’t just ask the driver to lower the ramp for him, but he bumped around and lugged this cart up the stairs of the bus, and we all waited for him to do so, and what did I see he had in his cart when he finally took a seat in front of me? A huge case of Coca-Cola and all the necessary supplies to feed a small army with strawberry shortcake.

Ain’t that just fuckin’ fantastic? Party at his place…

Let things come to you.  

I tried to enjoy the silence and do some reading, but I got distracted on the third bus to work when I ironically found myself sitting behind a group of four deaf teenagers.  I watched them talk to each other in Sign; they were laughing and having a good time.  

Watching them made me think about how grateful I am to have my hearing, and how on so many days I ride the bus listening to music, yet these deaf kids have never even heard music. I thought about what it would be like to live in a world of silence.   A fire engine passed by with its sirens wailing and I wondered if they could hear that.  

Could they hear each other laughing?

While in the midst my deaf people thoughts there suddenly was a clacking sound to my right.  I looked over and was disturbed to discover the sound was coming from the jaw of the man sitting across the aisle from me.  It looked like his jaw joints were off track, and his lower mandible was protruding out farther than the upper jaw bone.  

The clacking noise was caused by his mouth constantly opening and closing, and it really sounded as though he had wooden teeth, just like George Washington, or a ventriloquist’s doll.  The whole situation was a little too much for me and I wanted to get off the bus. I thought about moving to the back, to get away from the sound, but I ended up putting my finger in my ear and hummed until the clacking ceased.

As much as I didn’t like sound or thought of this guy’s jaw rattling with the bumps in the road, I knew tolerating that was better than being deaf. It makes me think of a poem I did not write but have known since middle school:

“The sun was shining in my eyes and I could barely see,
To do the necessary task that was allotted me.
Resentment of the vivid glow, I started to complain,
When all at once upon the ground I heard a blind man’s cane.”

Sitting directly across from me was a cute young man of mixed nationalities in a nice Special Blend snowboarding jacket; his fur-lined hood was on his head and he had cute little dreadlocks poking out.  Soon a big, fat Latino hustler got on the bus and sat next to a different young guy near the back of the bus and I watched him flash the young guy something in a dark brown box, but the guy said he wasn’t interested.  Then the hustler turned around and was eyeing everyone in the back of the bus…I could tell he was profiling, and looking for someone that might be interested in the product in his box.

His eyes locked on the dready across from me.

“Do you have a rolling paper?”  The hustler asked the dready, and the dready immediately produced a pack of papers from one of his jacket pockets and handed them over.

“Do you smoke?” The hustler inquired.

The dready confirmed.

“I’ve got some hash for sale,” the hustler said, and the dready proceeded to check out his product.

At this point the hustler moved to the seat directly next to the dready, but before he sat down he displayed his case to all of us back of the bus riders and tried to make a sale.  He was trying to sell watches, on the back of the Colfax bus, to crackheads, a guy talking loudly on his cell phone who repeated about seven times in the his conversation that he was “on his way to Wal-mart,” an old senile woman, and myself, who hasn’t owned a watch since Gathering of the Vibes festival in 2006. 

I did not witness him sell any watches, but he did secure a hash deal after sitting next to the dready.  The dready said he was down to trade for some hash, and even though the hustler didn’t know what he would be getting traded, he got excited at the prospect and said he would get off at the same stop as the dready to do the deal, and he would even buy the both of them a beer if the dready so desired.  The hustler went on to say that his “mother owns a dispensary” and that’s where he got the hash from. 

I didn’t get to see his product, but I can only assume it was some black blob of butane-extracted garbage.  I wanted to tell the dready not to get off the bus with the hustler and not to buy his crappy hash, and I wanted to tell the both of them that I had arguably the best hash in town in my pocket at that very moment, but I thought it best to refrain from any sort of personal conversation with hustlers on the Colfax bus and watched the two new amigos get off together at the dready’s stop. 

It’s been said before and I’ll say it again, “You can get anything you want on Colfax Avenue…”

I had gone out to celebrate a friend’s birthday at Pete’s Monkey Bar and planned on catching the last bus home, which of course required a transfer. I successfully got off the first bus and was drunk texting as I was waiting for my connection, but right as I saw the bus coming toward me I realized I was standing at the wrong stop and had to dash across an intersection and sprint up the road to the stop I was supposed to be at. I arrived to the stop at precisely the same moment as the bus and got on.

As soon as I paid my fare and sat down I realized I was missing my phone and knew it fell out of my jacket pocket when I was running. I started cursing over my missing phone, and then asked two guys sitting near me what they thought I should do about it. I considered getting off the bus to look for it, but it was the last bus to my neighborhood so the two guys and I decided that staying on was probably a better idea.

As the bus rolled on I continued talking with the two guys and showed them the glass pipe that was still in my pocket, expressing relief that “at least I didn’t lose that.” (Looking back now, above all I should have been glad I didn’t lose my bus fare.) It turned out the two guys were brothers. The younger brother had a cane and tried to say something to me about what I did that night, but I couldn’t understand him. The older brother explained that his younger brother had been shot in the head last year and lost a lot of his motor skills.

“Damn, why’d ya get shot?” I drunkenly inquired. “A street fight?”

The older brother confirmed it was “something like that.”

As it turned out, a drunk college girl found my cell phone and went out of her way to get it back to me. In just a few hours I am going to retrieve said phone at Cheba Hut in Denver, of all places. Just another reason why I fucking love life.

The white guy sympathized with the woman and said that he himself eats about $40 worth of cereal each week, and it’s just not enough. “You need meat, too” he said. He told the woman it was nice to hear she was trying to help out her grandkids, as he sometimes has to ask to borrow milk, sugar or a box of Hamburger Helper from one of his neighbors in order to get by.

These two strangers and I all got off at the same stop to transfer busses, and while we were waiting the guy continued to tell the woman and I how he met his wife on the #10 bus, and we were actually standing at “their stop” at that very moment. The guy explained that he had been riding on the bus and was advising a 14 year-old gang banger to make different choices and change his ways so that he didn’t end up serving ten years in prison like he had. After he was done talking to the teenager he laid eyes on his future wife and they started talking and really “hit it off.” The guy said he walked his future wife to her bicycle after they got off the bus, but he didn’t ask for her number.

As fate would have it, a few weeks later they found themselves on the same bus again and voila, now they’re married….which reminds me of another one of my favorite buscapade stories…

“Hello!” He hollered to her cross the rows of riders between them.  ”What’s your name?”

“Michelle,” the woman replied.  

“Hi Michelle, I’m Bob.” he said.  ”Are you heading to King Soopers grocery store?”

“No, I’m not,” Michelle replied.

Bob then got up and staggered over and sat in the empty seat directly next to her. I personally would have been a little creeped out by Bob’s conversation and seat change, but Michelle remained kind and receptive to his conversation attempts.  

Bob asked Michelle what she was doing that day, and she responded that she was going shopping with a girl friend.  Michelle asked Bob what he was doing, and he said he was riding the bus to the “lottery office” to cash in his “winning lottery tickets” that supposedly totaled somewhere around $12,000. 

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Michelle said.  “What will you do with your winnings?”

At first Bob said he would buy a car so that he didn’t have to ride the bus anymore, but then he looked concerned.

“How will I meet people like you if I’m not riding the bus?” Bob inquired of Michelle.

Michelle suggested that perhaps some days he can drive his car and on other days he can ride the bus.

“I know what I’ll do,”  Bob said.  “I’ll drive my car to the park-and-ride and continue riding the bus everyday, then if I meet a nice girl on the bus I can tell her that I have a car and offer to drive her somewhere.”

That’s quite the plan Bob had.  Regardless of whether or not he bought a car with his so called winnings, I hope he at least updated his wardrobe…

“What is that? Does it hold music?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“How many songs does it hold?” he asked.

I told him I didn’t know, but that it was 8 GB.  I’m sure that meant nothing to him because he then further inquired how one gets the song onto this iPod device.  I explained to him there is a cord you put into your computer…and then trailed off in conversation and fiddled with my gadget.  He got up to get off at the next stop, and I got up to move up toward the front of the bus to avoid further conversation, but that was a vain attempt.  

I had to wait to walk up the aisle to the front of the bus because a trio of potentially cracked out friends were exiting the bus out the back door.  Each one in the trio looked me in the face as they got off the bus and said something weird.  The first one was a sloppy woman and she mumbled something I didn’t understand.  The second one was a tall man with crippled legs and a raw wooden cane.  He said I was tall.  Then he noticed I was standing on a stair.  “Oh, you’re not tall, you’re standing on a stair,” he said. 

“Yeah but I am tall,” I told him. 

“No you aren’t,” he said.  “You’re a midget.” 

I laughed, and missed what the third one said, but felt like I was at the circus.

After I transferred to the second of the three busses I was taking home I decided I would put the iPod away and take out the book I’m reading, “Composting for Dummies.”  At the stop after mine two men who may not have been homeless themselves but probably are friends with homeless people got on and sat near me.  The one with the fur-trimmed and worn leather jacket, aviator sunglasses, chain necklaces, chin length hair and missing teeth eyed me.  He tried to say hello across the row between us, and quickly moved to the seat across the aisle from mine. 

“What are you reading?”  He asked.

I flashed him the book cover and told him “Composting.”

“Com-posing?  Composing!  Can you compose a room full of addicts?  Three hundred addicts, at a table, eating…can you compose that?” he asked me.

“No, I don’t think I can,” I replied.

“Well, we can” he said, as he nodded at his buddy with even more missing teeth.  

“Oh.”  I said.  “Well, I’m reading a book about composting.  It’s a way to get rid of some of your garbage.”

“Oh, OK, composting.  Yeah, I know it.  Well I hope you don’t mind my jacket,” he said, and attention was drawn to his garment.

It was a very worn, button-up black leather jacket with what he said was “juvenile lion’s fur” trim around the neck, throat and wrists.  He said it was from the 70s and that it was “extinct” now.  (I don’t know if he was talking about the fur or the style of jacket.)  I asked him where he got the jacket and he said he found it laying in a street.  I told him I liked it, and in all honesty, I did.

He then said something I didn’t quite catch, followed by “you know how when you take any sort of mind altering substance it takes about 40 minutes to begin affecting you.”

“What did you take?”  I asked. 

“I didn’t take anything,” he said.  “What did you take?”

“I didn’t take anything, either,” I replied.

“Your hair looks soft,”  he said.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“I’m Antonio,” he said, and shook my hand.

“Lauren,” I replied.

“Your hand is soft,” he said.

“Thanks,” I replied, and tried to show interest in my book. 

Luckily he and his buddy got off at the next stop.  That’s pretty much it for that buscapade, except for the guy with the teardrop tattoo under his eye that asked if he could use my cell phone.

I told him no, and finally the bus got to my stop.  Made it home safely.

In a way taking the bus around isn’t really terrible, it’s just a bit more inconvenient and I’m getting a bit more exercise…not that that’s a bad thing.  In fact, just the other day I chose to walk two miles down snow-packed streets and sidewalks when I missed my third and final connecting bus to work.   Sure, I was a little sweaty when I got there, and sure, I arrived late and would have made it in the exact same time had I just sat and waited for the next bus to come along…but yeah, I decided to walk…kind of like the day I decided to ride my bicycle eight miles to work (when I was not trained for that sort of commute.)  Neither were my best ideas, but I made it to my destination either way…

Riding the bus is WAY more interesting than riding in a car.  Every day I am left with funny, crazy or interesting stories of things I witnessed or experienced while traveling, and I have come to call these moments “Buscapades.”  My goal is to have a daily Buscapades Blog, but to start it off I am going to re-cap some of the finer moments I’ve enjoyed during my first month of being a public transit whore.

 

One of my first and favorite buscapade memories is of this older woman I encountered on the 40 bus one weekday morning.  The bus was crowded and at one stop she stood up and told some guy who had just boarded to sit in her seat.

 “What perfect timing!” she exclaimed to the stranger.  “I’m getting off at the next stop.  You can sit in my seat!  A whole row to yourself! Testing! Testing!”

 The man sat down and she was standing near him, trying to give him some sort of religious declaration about how the world needs more people like him, in between yelling out “Testing! Testing!”  The man never once replied to her, and when he began chatting on his cell phone it was apparent to me that he didn’t even speak English, which made me laugh. 

 “I can tell it’s going to be a busy day,” the woman then bellowed out to no one in particular.  “Busy and demanding! Just like Vietnam! Let’s get this over with, Benny!”

And then, “Testing! Testing!”

Much to my dismay for entertainment purposes, the woman soon got off the bus and carried on her merry way.  I at least hope she spent the rest of the day entertaining more of her religious thoughts than her Vietnam War thoughts…

“Why did you sell your car right before winter?” They want to know. “How will you get around?” “How much did you get for it?”

I sold the car before winter because it was a piece of fucking shit. Incredulously, the car kind of made it through last winter in the Rady, but I had a lot of problems with it. It broke down more than once and absolutely could not be driven when there was any accumulation of snow or ice on the streets.

I’d been having a problem with it where it wouldn’t start from time to time; it probably had something to do with the fuel pump, even though I had charged a new one to my credit card over the summer. The guy who changed my oil at Wal-mart a few weeks ago said I had a “loud knocking sound” coming from the engine and probably needed a new water pump. The guy who ended up buying the car said it looked like the car was about to need a new timing belt.

Whatever ailments the car had, they are no longer my problem. I listed the car on Craigslist for $2,000 and sold it to the very first person who looked at it for $1300. The man who bought it reminded me of a Latino version of my dad. He was kind and handy and knew a bit about cars. He said he was shopping for his daughter, who had X amount of money to spend, and that he had been giving her rides for the past three months and he was “sick and tired” of doing that. He said between him and his son they should be able to do all the necessary work on the car, which was exactly what it needed (and reminded me of my situation when I bought the car.) If I hadn’t moved across country and had a man in my life that could have helped me fix problems with the car, maybe I’d still have it…but in reality, nothing has made me feel more helpless and alone my whole time in Colorado than when my stupid car would break down and I had no one to call for assistance. I rather not rely on an unreliable car, especially through the winter.

My dad found the car for me for $800 on Craigslist in June 2010 and it was less than what I had saved, so when I bought the thing I also got it four new tires and brakes.

My dad checking out the car for me before purchase

When my dad was helping me find a car I told him I didn’t really care what it looked like, as long as the vehicle seemed like I could “put a lot of miles on it.” He didn’t know it at the time, but I had big plans to drive that car around NJ for the rest of the summer and then pack it with as much of my stuff as I could fit and use it to move me to Colorado. All I really wanted from that vehicle was for it to last until I arrived safely in CO, which it did, plus another fourteen months, give or take.

En route from NJ to CO!

Upon first arrival in the grand old Rocky Mountains I drove that car everywhere; all through Denver, over to Summit County, up and down mountain passes, exploring state parks and to and from concerts and work. Then one day last year as fall was turning to winter the car wouldn’t start so I had it towed to a nearby auto shop and was told it needed a new fuel pump, with an estimate of $800. I went home and put an ad under the craigslist “gig” section for an at-home mechanic. I had a few replies and with the help of my dad (who was 1,808 miles away) selected one of the repliers, who I call Craigslist Mechanic #1, to fix my car. I arranged to have the car towed to his house without ever meeting him or going there myself.

Craigslist Mechanic #1 immediately changed the fuel pump spark plug and said the car started right up with the new plug and that I didn’t need a new fuel pump. I gave him permission to do a few other minor repairs and then arranged for him to deliver the car to me at my work. As I was giving Craigslist Mechanic #1 directions to the Fortune 500 Company I had been working for at the time, he said, “Oh, I know exactly where that is, I used to do in-patient rehab right around there.”

“Did he just say in-patient rehab?” I silently asked myself as the conversation flowed on, but didn’t want to ask for details.

Sure enough when Craigslist Mechanic #1 arrived to my work with my car with his missing teeth and Nascar attire, it was quite obvious he had or has a liking for hard drugs, and so did his lady friend who was following him in a run-down mini van. I gave him the cash and tried to keep the conversation short for fear that someone from the company would see me associating with these people in their parking lot. He was nice and honest with me and I actually tried sending him more clientele a week or so later, but his number had been disconnected.

A few weeks later the car was parked outside my house and wouldn’t start again, and Triple A sent a tall, handsome mountain man in a cowboy hat to my aid. The cowboy said it seemed like my car was out of gas, so he put $10 worth in and got the beast running. He told me never to let the gas get below a quarter tank and never to buy cheap gasoline. The car ran steady for another month or so, but then came my least favorite night in Colorado.

It was early February and we were just coming out of a below 0 cold spell; I’d say it was about 15 degrees out on the night I’m about to recap. I was driving home from work on the interstate during rush hour traffic when my car decided to stop running. I coasted over to the shoulder and sat in the broken down car, wondering what to do. I wanted to call my dad in NJ, but that would have been ridiculous, so instead I got my sleeping bag out of the trunk and sat under it in the passenger seat, apparently waiting for some miraculous rescue.

When after an hour or so it appeared nobody was going to pull over and offer assistance I put on my gloves and walked through the biting cold across the highway, up an off-ramp and into a gas station. I was fighting back tears as I fumbled with my debit card to purchase a red gas canister; and apologized to the cashier that I was “having a bad day.” I asked the gas station cashier to show me how to work the red canister, and when he looked at me like I was a fucking idiot, I burst into tears, then and there, in the middle of the gas station in front of a line of people. The attendant continued to watch me cry in bewilderment until the man behind me in line took the canister and demonstrated how easy it was to use. I filled the thing up, walked back to my car and spilled gas all over my gloves while dumping it into the tank. Of course the car still wouldn’t start and I finally called a tow truck.

I was back in my car under the sleeping bag waiting for the tow truck when a police officer finally pulled up behind me to see what was up with the vehicle in the shoulder. It had been there for over two hours and I couldn’t believe it took that long for someone to stop. The police officer let me sit in his heated car while we waited for the tow truck, and I had the thing towed to my house until I figured out what I was going to do with it. (Luckily I still had a few tows left on my Triple A membership.) While I ate a plate of frozen waffles for dinner I placed a second ad on Craigslist in search of a mechanic to install a fuel pump.

For Craigslist Mechanic #2 I selected a fellow who said his name was Jack Truex and that he had a “garage” located one block off Colfax, on Garrison. I knew this supposed garage location was not in the best part of town, but it was easy for me to get to by bus and Jack sounded like he knew his stuff over the phone, so I arranged to have the car towed to his garage. When I hopped in the tow truck and told the driver where the car was going he replied, “I’ve been a tow truck driver for 20 years and I’ve never heard of a garage at that location.”

I should have taken that as a sign and told him to dismount my car and I’d fix it myself, but no, I carried through with yet another one of my brilliant ideas.

We arrived to Jack’s garage, which he told me would be marked “#7”, and although the whole block was really shady looking there was in fact a row of garages people rented at this location, and there seemed to be a good amount of cars parked in the vicinity so I assumed everything was relatively legit. I met Jack, who was in his 30s and kind of good looking in an east coast Italian Stallion kind of way, and he told me he should have the car ready in two days. I left him the key and rode the bus home.

Jack Truex's garage "#7"

From the day I left my car with Jack Truex to the day I got it back an entire month passed. He ran me through all sorts of hoops, saying he ordered this part and it hasn’t come in, or now it needs this part, or now he thinks it’s the computer module, not the fuel pump. One time he called to tell me he lost the key and asked if I had a spare. When I lied and told him I didn’t, he called back an hour later to tell me he “found it.”

I don’t know what the hell Jack Truex was doing with the car – looking for parts at a junk yard? Fucking up? Driving it? Not working on it? I called him repeatedly and accepted his excuses even though it was causing me stress and tears. I didn’t feel comfortable taking the bus down Colfax alone at night after work to investigate the situation, though after about three weeks I got a ride and brought a guy friend in the garage with me to see what was going on. Jack Truex showed us that he was working on the car, said it’d be done soon and we left.

It was toward the end of week three of not having my car that I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I had been carpooling to work with Blair and he was ready to kill me, I couldn’t get a straight answer out of my awesome mechanic and I couldn’t rally up any agro guys to go beat the shit out of him, so I did the next best thing. I had my friend call Mr. Truex and tell him he was my lawyer, and that if I didn’t get my car back his ass was about to get sued. The law threat worked and I got my car back and running the very next day, which was also the one-month anniversary of the day I dropped it off there.

Truex said he put in a new fuel pump and computer module, and I paid him somewhere around $700 cash. I say Truex is a deceiving piece of shit and I hope his shitty garage and business has already burned to the ground.

After finally getting my car back it ran well for a few months, until it wouldn’t start again one day in June, only a week after I had been let go from my loathed office job. I was actually babysitting when the thing broke down; I had taken the kids to dance lessons and it wouldn’t start in the parking lot when we went to leave. A nice lady drove the kids and I back to their house, and when the kids’ dad got home he drove me to my broken down car and I sat and waited for a tow truck, which I paid for with the money I had just made babysitting, since I was now fresh out of Triple A tows.

This time I had the car brought to a reputable and recommended mechanic’s shop, Phillips Automotive. The shop installed a new fuel pump and showed me the one they took out, which was the original GM fuel pump, which meant that Craigslist Mechanic #2, Jack Truex, never installed a new fuel pump like he said he did. I hate his guts.

I charged the new fuel pump to my credit card, and while I was at it decided to also charge two used tires on the card since the tread on my back two had worn down so badly that driving the car in the rain felt as unstable as a one-year-old on ice skates.

The car continued to last me the rest of this summer and into the fall, and I continued to drive it all over the fucking place, knowing that my time with it was limited. Unfortunately I had to use to last bit of credit left on my Visa card in October when I locked my keys in my car twice in a three week period; locksmith costs totaling $200. That’s when it became all too apparent…I simply couldn’t afford any more car problems.

This past Halloween weekend my car pulled the straw that broke the camel’s back. It wouldn’t start when I had it parked outside a friend’s apartment downtown and this caused me stress because it was Sunday night and two-hour parking began the next morning at 8 AM. I was worried and fretted to my friend. We were preparing to go see The Motet at The Bluebird Theater, but what was I going to do with the car? Would I get it moved before the parking police came by? Where would I have it towed to? How would I pay to fix it?

As I was expressing these thoughts, my friend turned the music on and it picked up in the middle of the song we had last been listening to that day. It was Phish’s version of “Loving Cup” and I kid you not the verse that came through the speakers as my friend sat on the couch with his guitar was, “Yes I am stumbling, and I know my car won’t start…Yes I am fumbling, and I know I play a bad guitar…”

I laughed at the irony, went to The Motet, left the car overnight and managed to get it started on the tenth try before street parking police came by the next morning. When I got home with the car Monday morning I posted it on Craigslist and on Tuesday morning called back the one guy who had given his phone number in an e-mail. The guy was at my house 20 minutes later, inspected the car, took it for a test run (so grateful it was behaving) and made me the offer of $1300. I accepted, but told him I couldn’t sell it until the next morning, so he gave me a $200 cash deposit and left. I immediately got into my car, went to Wal-mart and spent the deposit money on one of the first $100 women’s mountain bikes I looked at, a helmet, a lock and a seat cover; all in about 15 minutes because I was rushing to get to work.

Of course it had to snow the morning I sold the car. I told the purchaser it needed snow tires before he made the offer, but apparently he didn’t care. He said he drove great in the snow, and we made the title/cash exchange. I wished him luck, as I truly felt he was going to need it.

I know $1,300 isn’t all that much money, especially when a car is involved, but I think I made out well (expect for having the take the bus around town). I figured what was going to happen was; the car would break down, I wouldn’t get it started, I wouldn’t pay to fix it and I’d have to junk it for $250. That was my seventh shitty car, or maybe my eighth. This ain’t my first rodeo, and I can’t deal with that crap. A car is just not in my reality… right now. But the bus is…and my new bike is…and old man winter is…

I’m putting some of the car money toward a ski pass, so let me know if you can give me a lift to the mountains this season. Cheers!