Not the Trip I Planned

Not the Trip I Planned

He was not the children’s father but taught them to fish. Looking back now, I realize it was not quite as I remembered; he needed rides to the fishing holes because he didn’t have a car. That was the problem; he would take my car and leave me stranded. I would usually be at work and need to pick up my children from daycare and after-school programs. I had been in a vicarious situation for the last time around November 10th while temping at the Post Office, so I found a used car in the paper and insisted he purchases it.

This was a good plan for a few weeks until, like most used cars, it proved why the previous owner upgraded. It was okay to zip around the area near the house, but it could not do the highway. So, I traded during the week (M-F) only 8-6 because I only worked two blocks from home, and his job was fifty miles one way. This would have benefited him, but I still got left looking for my car often because men don’t respect time, rules, or favors. The straw that broke my (camel’s back) happened right before the super bowl, January 98. I was fixing dinner, and he asked me to borrow the car to run to the store. Unfortunately, he didn’t understand the shortest one-word answer in English. NO!

It was frustrating to realize that he took my car without permission, chose to stay out overnight, and I was supposed to be in Crozet for a new job on Monday morning, thirty-five miles away uphill. His demon was back; how did I miss the signs? There was nothing I could do except pray to work the following day. Thankfully, the trip home was downhill, and the car was four-speed. Rather than risk being stranded by a failing car, I abandoned my Monday night plan and stayed. For the next month, I refused to trade cars no matter the need.

I quickly found a permanent job close to home, and I was able to retire my hair nets and steel-toe shoes. Back at work, I enjoyed doing office work, paper pushing, and number crunching. On Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day, after my children got home, I went back to the office to ask my supervisor about a new position opening that I was interested in applying for. She said it would require me to take a test after work on Friday; we scheduled it for 3 p.m. I also had a backup plan for jobs, well, sort of. I have been trying to get a job in the 911 call center for about seven years. I tested in the top 5% of the United States three times, and they stopped making me test. I applied and interviewed so many times that I was on a first-name basis with Naomi in human resources and most of the firefighters at Monday night Bingo. I even had a second interview, number eight, scheduled for the 18^th @ 3. I never made it.

I was angry with my boyfriend again and knew he had to go instead of staying home, packing his glad rags in a hefty bag or a box, or just tossing that crap into the hall outside the apartment door. I am a fixer, a single mother of boys, in love with family, and not wanting to be alone; I put up with too much. After a seemingly heartfelt apology, I decided to rethink my break-up plans. I wanted to believe this was genuine, but you know what they say about a burned child “they dread fires.”

 So, I needed to think long and hard about what I should do. Whenever I needed to think, I would go to bingo alone, and I thank God that I was alone; no one in the passenger seat would have survived. That evening I had been wrestling with the decision to break up with him and the best way to handle it. I knew I would be better off without him, but I loved his family. His mother, aunt, and uncle treated my children and me like family—something I have missed since April 26, 1995, when my mom died.

I had been driving a stick shift for years; my father taught me when I was 12 because my mom was a type 1 diabetic, and we didn’t have a better backup plan. She was a school bus driver; I was often the only person with her in the morning and afternoon for miles. I also had become a school bus operator for three years, and I was so comfortable behind the wheel of a stick shift that I decided to purchase a manual-geared car twice before.

Well, here’s what I had planned. Step one stop at the bank for twenty dollars more; $40 would be enough to purchase all the slips, a hot dog, chips, and a drink. The wait for my turn at the ATM should have been enough time to know that I should have gone back home. Step two go to bingo. Step three was a coin toss. He goes if I didn’t win. Well, that is as far as the planning got.

Twenty-five years and what seems like a lifetime ago, I was paralyzed in an accident. How does someone roll their car, going thirty-seven miles an hour on a straightaway? The simple answer is I don’t know how. That was the determination on the police report. For years I tried to figure out did I downshift before I hydroplaned. I had to; I was in the fast lane going nowhere, but bingo, not late, actually not even worried about being able to play the first 4 four games, the early birds, because after waiting my turn at the ATM, I decided against getting more money.  

Well, now I know that the accident saved my life in more ways than one. It slowed me down enough to enjoy life. Yes, life is different from the vantage point of a wheelchair, but I avoided a life-ending disease. Well, that’s extreme; maybe, but AIDS was still new in 98. I would never have been doing what I enjoy; quitting work was not an option back then. Yes, it took some disciplined to learn to survive on disability, but I can write about whatever I want, when I want to, so I have not worked since March 17, 1998.