Wine and Zoloft

Hey all you cool cats and kittens. To kick off today’s aimless musings I’d like to make mention of the fact that merely a week after I called Prince Phillip a “reanimated corpse” and said it was time for the Royal Family to start digging a shallow grave out back, he has officially passed on. May he rest in peace. With that being said, I believe his death shortly after my last blog post is yet another shining example of my gift of foresight.

Over the years, I have truly believed that I have a sixth sense, inspired partially by my unique ability of reading people and situations, and partially by a childhood infatuation with the show Charmed. Despite this, there has been several times in my life where my mystic abilities, and truly just the gift of common sense, have entirely eluded me. And for whatever reason, each of these instances have seemed to revolve around driving. Here are a few of my personal favorite examples.

My parent’s attempted to avoid the possibility of me getting my license for as long as possible. While all of my friends were Tokyo drifting in the Donut Delight parking lot in their parent’s Volvos, I was still forced to rely on anyone I could trick into giving me a ride to school in the morning. Finally, shortly after my eighteenth birthday, my mother realized she could only hold off the inevitable for so long.

1. It was a long and somber trip on my way to the Danbury DMV and I could feel the familiar twinge of my psychic ability warning me that this was a bad idea, but I shook it off. The only prior driving practice I had was with my father in a church parking lot two days prior, and let me tell you he isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer himself. Regardless, I arrived and was greeted by a man who I could only describe as Jabba the Hutt’s clipboard wielding doppelganger. While much of the session remains a panic induced blur, I remember the last five minutes pretty clearly. We pulled back into the lot of the DMV and I had my head held high. I hadn’t committed any major driving faux-paus during the test, and I was feeling overly confident.

“Okay Rachel, have you ever backed and parked before?” Jabba asked in between deep breaths. Apparently, sitting in the passenger seat had left him winded.

“Yep!” I lied.

“Okay, pull up and back into that spot.”

“No problem!” I lied again. There was a problem. As I backed into what I thought was an empty parking space without so much as a quick glance over my shoulder, I heard a large thump followed by a preeeettty intense scratching sound.

“What was that?” I asked, somehow oblivious to the fact that the car I was driving was literally perched on top of another car in the lot.

“ARE YOU JOKING? DID YOU EVEN LOOK? WE AREN’T RESPONSIBLE FOR COVERING THE DAMAGE TO OTHER CARS DURING ROAD TESTS. WHERE IS YOUR FATHER?” I could see he was reeaaaallly starting to work himself up now, and I thought it would be a good idea for me to try and relax him with my wit and charm before he had a full on coronary.

“Well.. did I pass?” I said with a smile. He looked at me with an expression I would imagine one would give someone who had just run over their dog, and began practically foaming at the mouth.

“Put.. the.. car.. in…” **deep gasping breaths** “Turn.. off.. the.. car.. and.. get.. out.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” I said as I quickly unfastened my seat belt.

After six long painful months and five shame inducing attempts, I finally passed. I’m still convinced they were holding some sort of grudge against me over there which is why I failed the subsequent four times, but I never had enough concrete proof. Shortly after, my parent’s graciously decided to bequeath to me a 2006 gold Toyota with two permanent hubcaps, and what turned out to be a pretty serious gas leak.

2. I had been driving around the steel death trap for about a month and once again was ignoring all warning signs, supernatural or otherwise. Sure, the car would frequently die in the middle of the road for no reason, leaving me at the mercy of any unhinged passerby with jumper cables. Didn’t think much of it. Sure, sometimes I would put gas in the car, park it, and when I went to turn it on again the tank would somehow by on E. Maybe I just didn’t put enough, I thought. Then things got weird.

About a week prior to the incident I had noticed that the floor of the backseat of the car would frequently be damp. Maybe it’s from the rain, I thought. Mind you, this car barely had power steering, much less a sunroof I could’ve possibly left open.

One night after work that week I reached behind the passenger seat to grab my mascara which had rolled onto the floor. The carpeting was soaking wet, and I realized it hadn’t rained in days. Maybe I spilled something, I thought.

As I drove home, I noticed that the front hood of the car was literally sparking every time I put my foot on the gas. I had cautioned my parents several times that I could sense the car would lead to my untimely death, but they ignored me, assuming this was nothing more than a ruse I was using to get a nicer car. They were wrong.

As I pulled onto my street with the engine sparking I couldn’t wait until the morning when they were awake and I could finally prove to them that that the car was a literal ticking time bomb. My usual spot in front of my house was taken, so I decided it would be a good idea to park in the driveway of the house for sale across the street. It had been empty for months, and I didn’t see much of an issue in parking my smoking vehicle there for the night. What was the worst that could happen?

After I went inside, I got into bed immediately and poured myself a glass of wine. I began thinking about what kind of new car I wanted, and how I was going to guilt my parent’s into getting me it. I had just settled on threatening to call DCF on them for child endangerment when I heard a loud boom. I sat still for a moment, wondering if it was a gun shot. Within seconds I heard my sister’s bedroom door open, and the sound of her racing down the stairs into the living room.

“OH MY GOD. RACHEL! RACHEL!” She cried out. I sighed deeply, wondering how much someone getting shot in front of our house was going to change the trajectory of my evening. I got up and walked downstairs, only to see my sister Jessica looking at me in abject horror with tears in her eyes.

“Oh my god I thought you were in the car!”

“What car Jessica what the hell are you talking about?” And then, as I glanced out of the bay window, I saw. There it was. My car. Engulfed in flames on all sides about eight feet high. And slowly but surely spreading to the neighbors garage door.

By this time my mother had also awoken and was doing zoomies like a Boston Terrier out on the front lawn in a blind panic, and slowly but surely, each of my neighbors came out onto the street to watch the events unfold. Fortunately within minutes the fire department had arrived and put out the blistering inferno that was my Toyota Camry, but not before the fire had singed the garage and left a gaping hole in the home’s freshly cemented driveway. Once the flames were out and she had finished accosting the firefighters, my mother returned to the house.

“I can’t believe this. I really just can’t believe this.” She said shaking her head

“Well, I told you that that car was a liability and you didn’t-” before I could even get the words out, she slammed her bedroom door.

There are several other instances which I could delve into, but I think I’ll save them for another time a. because these memories are bringing up a lot of old wounds for me and b. because I have rambled on long enough. Have a blessed day everyone and remember to drive safe.

#driving #drive #driverslicense #charmed #newblog #newpost #royalfamily #princephillip #death #fire #viral #magic #psychic