when i get to a parking lot, nearly any parking lot, i check and see if my car is the junkiest one there (it almost invariably is)... it has become an issue of twisted pride to me. When i do see a car that is shittier than mine is, i feel a little bit jealous.  and i feel a sense of camaraderie with the owner of the other jalopy because (whether by intention or sheer economics) we are related.  my car is ugly.  it is an adventure.  when i drive around, somewhere in the mind of  every person on the road in a brand new car i like to think that there is the realization that my shitbox cost me roughly what they pay for theirs every single month, and yet we are both waiting for the light to change, just the same.  hah.

     but, maybe the joke is on me.  i live in a constant state of uneasiness about my car.   i have to walk home sometimes when i least want to (late at night when it and the battery are really cold).  it was directly responsible for me getting  a mouth and face full of gasoline (well, it and my own stupidity, but that is its own story), and i still haven't tried to fill it past a third of a tank for fear that i didn't really fix the leak. but i am certainly not worried about it getting dinged up in a parking lot, or stolen.