The Power of Chrysler Compels You

I think I bought a car. Well, another van. Not like the green Ford Aerostar of 27 years ago. Not the 22-year-old Lilac Lumpy suffering through drawn-out electronic dementia in my driveway. Not even the PT cruiser huddling under its blankie in the back yard. Nothing like the blue truck of Hubbin’s dreams we picked up brand new 2 months ago. Just a van. One that ironically costs the same as the first one we bought in 1993, The same color as 4 of the last cars we’ve had. I didn’t have a lot of voice in that. Just a vehicle that I will not get attached to, not because it’s bad, just because it’s only a thing. Attachment begets suffering and I’m not ready to get attached.

So it’s not a done deal. They have to send me the paperwork and I’ll write them a check. It was one of those deals where you rent a car and drive it for 3 days and if you like it just take it home. The whole thing was like 30 minutes on the phone. It’s too easy. Too weird. What’s even weirder is that because we haven’t been going anywhere or doing anything grandiose for 6 months we have the money, all the money. I walked away from Argle Bargle over two years ago and haven’t done anything but tend the seeds I’ve sown over the last 30 years and suddenly I can have pretty much anything I want. Why? Because I really don’t want anything. Hubbin wants me to be over the moon about the car. I just need the car. It’s just a car. It’s even a van which I have been moony over ever since the people from the mission dragged the green one away. I’ll give them Lumpy too.

So many years I told myself if I just had the time, money and a van I’d go see everything. Well, guess what? I have all three and now COVID-effin-19.

Earlier this week we drove down to Idaho and spent the night in a place where the college students are ruining everything for themselves. I got a wicked deal on a hotel room because we served our country and also because everything is locked down. It seemed like it would be nice to be anywhere but the place we’ve been stuck for the last 175 days.  Kind of, but really you couldn’t even go down the hall and get breakfast because the guests still couldn’t play by the rules. It was really just 4 walls somewhere else and a view of the local Winco, a place we could only look at like fish watching the dry world from the safety of our neon gravel-lined tank. So, we got back in the van and drove home hungry. I stopped to look at grizzly bears. They weren’t terribly interested in me. It was a beautiful day and we talked ourselves into keeping the van.

I’ve got friends coming over tomorrow. People who don’t stray out among the public either. I’m supposed to clean the house before they get here. Hubbin and Wu and I kind of inhabit our space like a bunch of frat kids. It’s tough on a home space. The battle with dust gave me a major headache. It always does. This is a dusty country and we have had fires near enough to cause us issues. If I get all my books and stuff off the tables, make sure all the bathrooms are clean, and build a meal that doesn’t make everyone projectile vomit, it’s going to have to be enough. These people are actually really important to us. They’re the only ones we trust enough to let into our lockdown space. I can’t do house beautiful. I enlisted the menfolk to helps me (at their request I’m not to be overwhelmed and wear myself out) and we all ended up taking naps from 2-5 this afternoon.

Things have been really casual at Casa Tunguska. That’s how we keep from whirling ourselves into angsty plops of tiger butter. It’s really not super tidy though.

Side note:  Hubbin has gotten hooked on a TV series starring my once upon a time fake husband (the one the kids and I used to watch movies to see how he died while Hubbin was doing military out of town and often overseas). Now that the guy is 61, married with 3 kids, and has pretty much the prototype Dad-bod I think he’s got to be my imaginary ex-husband. Is it weird that Hubbin is now bingeing my imaginary ex-husband?