I think I may have been caught on a red light camera Friday night, because Waze was directing me and I didn’t see where I was going for a half second, and that’s all it takes. The ticket won’t be expensive, at least from what I’ve heard from Uber drivers, but it says a lot about my driving that I’ve had a car less than a week and already I’ve made a stupid mistake. Hopefully my insurance won’t go up by too much, but it’s just all the more reason why I didn’t want a car in the first place. I mean, I do, but I don’t. My driving record has been clean for a long time, and I wanted to keep it that way. Of course, not driving for almost a year really, really helped. At least it wasn’t a speeding ticket. I don’t speed at all, and there are thousands of drivers mad at me, I’m sure, because I am content to toodle along in the right lane. My car has a huge blind spot on the left-hand side, so I try not to move much. I’m going to go to Auto Zone after work and get a secondary mirror. I have to make this car last as long as possible, and wrecking it for damn sure won’t help.
I also need to get a few tools to change my sparkplugs, which I forgot I needed… or rather, on the Saturn it was much easier. However, I’ve watched five YouTube videos on the subject, and it’s not THAT much harder. The plugs are just a little harder to get to… if only Volfe was here. It’d be done already, because he carries the tools in the back of his truck. 🙂
I also got all the stuff I needed to detail her, including tire black and a new stick shift knob that lights up blue neon. The car is silver and the interior is blue and black, so it looks divine… literally. Ethereal in the dark. So at least if I did get caught on a red light camera, the picture will look good. It’s all about presentation.
It’s nice to have a little bit of money to spend on fixing up my car, because she doesn’t need much work, but the health of the engine is paramount. The spark plugs need to be changed every 30,000 miles, so buying the tools to do it is a no-brainer. I also want to get some Rubbermaid tubs to keep the back orderly. I have enough cleaning stuff to necessitate the tub, and my room is small enough that keeping my car gear in the cargo area sounds better than trying to find a place for it upstairs. I also have grape soda back there, because I like having cold soda first thing in the morning. However, if it gets too cold, I’m going to be ecstatic that I put it in a bin. Nothin’ says lovin’ like grape soda sprayed all over your car.
I told Lindsay that she’d given me something to take care of, and it felt good because I don’t have babies or pets. It’s nice to have a hobby. 😛
The only thing is that I don’t know Maryland and DC at all. Everything I needed was in Alexandria, so when I lived here before, I didn’t have to go into the city unless I wanted to, and I know NoVA like the back of my hand. Driving in Maryland/DC is unfamiliar and therefore, scary. I am not to be trusted without some sort of GPS, even if I was paying attention to it too hard. Don’t feel sorry for me- I brought this upon myself. I just feel like a schmuck.
Which is why it made me feel like a rock star that I matched with someone on Tinder (looking for friends) that’s a foreign service officer. I told her that I’m a writer and I would kill to hear some of her stories. She’s fluent in like, five languages, which means there’s no limit to the amount of people she can have a conversation with where I’ll have no idea what she’s saying. However, I want to learn Arabic for my novel, so maybe she can teach me what I need to know, or at the very least, translate what I need the characters to say. Plus, some of her stories might make good novel scenarios if she doesn’t mind me lifting them.
In other news, I need a haircut.
Stories That Are All True 