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Even though I consider myself a fairly practical person, I often find myself hoping a problem will be resolved if I just wait it out. Maybe, as a wildly off the wall example, my car would just get tired of not starting for me. Possibly this was just a temporary problem, and before long something would shake itself loose and all would be well again.
As you and I both know, it didn't happen that way. The problem got worse, and then new problems arose, and the car blew up in my face. I was left for almost two whole days without transportation. Oh, woe.
Then, forced into action by circumstances that might have been under my control at one time but no longer were, and with the help of people both in my family and on the other side of the world (with a few stops in between), I solved that problem and a few others I'd forgotten I had.
It's one thing to miss one day's trip to the post office. It's quite another to realize suddenly that you've been deliberately keeping yourself isolated, just because of your unreliable vehicle. Or, in this case, my crappy old car.
All those weekends when I told myself I was too busy to go to a movie now seem like lost time. At least a part of that was because I didn't get much done, despite staying cooped up in the house. I wonder how many times I would have found somewhere to go or something to do, if it hadn't been for the Honda situation. I guess now, or soon, or some time in the future, I'll find out.
It won't be this weekend, though. I'm still afraid, but not of the car. I'm afraid of spots. I was careful today on my errands not to park under any trees or light poles. I've been careful ever since I got the new car, and yet I've still had to wipe off bird droppings every day. There's no way to get into my nice, safe garage without driving through the mud, and so I'm going to have to wash that off before I take the car in for its "touch of class" treatment next Tuesday.
After that, though, the leash is off. Nothing will be left in my way. I won't have any reason, real or imagined, to stay home on a Saturday afternoon. Well, I won't have any real reason. I can always come up with something out of the dark corners of my imagination. What-ifs are hard-wired into my brain.
That doesn't mean I'll stay home all this weekend, but I probably won't drive down to Rohnert Park and leave my baby in the theater parking lot for three hours while I watch The Two Towers. I'm sure that movie, along with all the others I now feel free to see, will still be playing after Tuesday. I just might run over to the Rialto Tuesday night and see what's happening there for half price. | 
