Anniversary

Yesterday was mine and the esteemed one's 36th wedding anniversary. I had to teach, so I left him a card in his bathroom, and he had left me one in front of the coffee maker. Do we know each other, or what?

When I got home from teaching, the old Buick wasn't there, so I thought he wasn't home. But the door between the house and the garage opened, and there he was. I asked where Bessie was (yes, I've named the old car). He said, "Probably at the funeral home." She had once again stalled, so he got her into the repair shop. They found out that there was an electrical short in the turning indicators, but that was hardly the cause of the stalling.

We went out to eat, feeling almost guilty for celebrating when the poor old Buick was obviously on her last wheel. However, today the prognosis is a bit better. The guy says she has stalled only once today, and they can't figure out what's causing it.

Knowing old Bessie as well as I do (she's over 16 years old!), I think I know. She misses me. I've been driving the new(er) Toyota back and forth to work, leaving the hubby to drive Bessie. He has no sentimental feelings for her the way I do, and she knows it. He's been wanting a new car and making no bones about it. And if he honestly thinks she doesn't pick up on all that negative thought, he doesn't know her even half as well as I do.

For all the doubters out there among my many millions of readers (snicker), you are people who have never really known a car. You probably don't even attribute feelings to your pets. Some of you probably don't even believe your children are human beings, with deep feelings (and long memories). But, doubting world, your children are evolving creatures who will one day remind you cruelly of all the designer jeans you opted not to buy them, leaving them feeling unpopular in the cattle call of public schooling. They will stand over your bed when you are elderly and discuss your funeral as if you weren't still alive, listening to them, and merely recovering from the flu. Should you ever once forget their birthdays or anniversaries or other dates important to them (such as the day they made the junior high basketball team), you might as well hang it up, because you have become an Old Fogey. Old Fogeys are only one step away from a life/death sentence at the nearest nursing home, the one with ex-convicts working as orderlies and clones of Nurse Cratchett running the floor.

Pets are more forgiving. They seek vengeance for your neglect in a more passive-aggressive manner. That strangely damp ammonia-reeking spot near the front door? Yeah, guess what. Fido did not forgive you for buying the Wal-Mart brand of dog chow. Fluffy is still angry that you ran over her tail with the vacuum cleaner.

Cars are even worse. They start off gently, a little flat tire here, a minor hose bursting there. That's to call your attention to their hurt feelings. After all, you wouldn't admire another person with your spouse standing there. How dare you admire, salivate even, over another car? But when you start getting serious, when the last six months of Consumer Reports are tagged for all the new car reviews, when your wallet has begun accumulating the business cards of all the vehicle sales people in your area--then, buddy, you are in for it. No more of this polite stalling in the driveway. Now it's time for a complete loss of engine power on the interstate when you're going 75 mph--in a driving rainstorm and dense fog. Then, buster, it's Carrie time. Or should I say Christine time? Isn't that the name of the maniac car in the Stephen King novel/movie?

Bessie is a totally beautiful lady. Truly, she is really an Elizabeth, queen of the Buick LeSabres. She is a regal dark red, with a nearly unmarred vinyl roof. She hardly has a scratch mark or rusty spot on her. She is as classic and elegant as Katherine Hepburn, even with the odd little changes the hubby has effected upon her--the dashboard wired down with clotheshanger wire, the oddly unfitting radio antenna. So what if only one window rolls down. It's the driver's side window. She knows what's important.

My 36th wedding anniversary pales in comparison to the importance of Bessie's health crisis. She comes first. Dr. S.