Posthip

There are so many reasons why I shouldn’t have a car. About midway down the list is that I have no will to maintain a car, or to even keep it street legal.

But I do own a car now, and have for almost three months. I like the car a lot. It drives great, looks good. I can play my iPod. It has lots of carrier space. I don’t have to wait fifty minutes for it to get there because I missed it by thirty seconds and the driver didn’t notice my frantic waving in the rearview mirror. Theoretically, I could go out on a date in it, but c’mon, it’s not a MAGIC car. And, it doesn’t get very good gas mileage, especially since most of my driving is in the city, but then I don’t drive very much, either.

But it’s that first problem, the lack of maintaining it, that is the bane of my week. See my Driver’s License is still suspended from a speeding ticket in Louisiana that I failed to pay four years ago. Texas and Louisiana got together and decided that they would cooperate, suspending the licenses of people who do stupid stuff like that. They don’t care that you’ve moved eight or nine times during that period, or that you lived out of state for awhile, or that you haven’t even had a car for most of that time.

This sets off an unpleasant chain of events. See, you can buy a car with a suspended license. Provided you have proof of insurance, which I do, you can buy a car. What you can’t do is add that car to your insurance. Because your license is suspended. Big Brothers/Big Sisters are not the only ones who frown on that, apparently. My insurance carrier for the last fifteen years would not let me add the car to my policy. So, I’m covered for liability while driving it, but the car isn’t covered. So if, say, someone hits my car while it’s parked on the street in front of a bar in South Dallas, it could be a problem.

And someone hit my car while it was parked on the street in front of a bar in South Dallas.

Sunday afternoon I noticed I was missing a hubcap. It looked as though there were big, black scratches across the left-front corner of the bumper, but on closer inspection, it was just residue from a tire. Luckily, there is no permanent damage. I went back to the bar where I’d been Saturday night to see if the hubcap was there. I couldn’t find it, but there was a stop sign right across the narrow street that had been leveled, the post ripped out of the ground. I suppose that already could have been like that, or could have happened later, but I think the two things are probably related.

I mentioned renewing my inspection earlier? And you are thinking, “Brand new car, why is he talking about inspection?” Back at the end of January, the new tag for my car came in the mail. In a change from what I used to deal with, it’s now a little sticker that goes in the front window above the inspection sticker. I carried it around with me for weeks and weeks in my car, because I didn’t know what all I needed to get the old sticker off. But progress! Two weeks ago, I finally tried to get the old one off. It was hard! I got it mostly done, but there was some residue. So I was still driving without the new one until I could remember to get some X-Acto blades, because I couldn’t find mine.

Until Saturday. That’s when I noticed that all the other cars have 2 stickers, but I only had one. As it turns out, when I thought I was removing my expired tags two weeks ago (Why did the dealer let them expire in 09-08? And why are the new ones so much crummier looking than the old ones?) I was actually removing my inspection sticker, which was to expire in August of this year. WHY ARE THERE TWO TAGS IN THE WINDOW NOW?

So, I have an improperly insured car (with no proof of liability insurance, because I keep forgetting to print it out and take it with me) that has no inspection sticker at all (but the tag is now attached!) and I’m driving it with a suspended license that, by the way, expires at the end of the week.

I’m unfit. I know this. I long for the relative safety and sanity of a 5 a.m. slumber at the final stop in Jamaica, Queens, on an F train I boarded at 2nd Avenue in Manhattan, trying to get to Brooklyn.

I’m just no good at getting stuff like this done. I’m already paying for my car, why do I have to keep thinking about it, scheduling around it, standing in lines? Just add it to my bill and let me not have to remember or worry or plan! That’s why I pay more to get new a new car, to avoid hassle. Now I’ve got a payment and a headache.

(Originally posted March 25, 2009)