Twenty-Eight.
I finally got around to calling the Mazda dealership to make an appointment to have my
newly arrived speaker and stereo installed. Just in time to add a new and exciting complaint to the progress report:
"So now? Out of nowhere, whenever I roll down the driver's side window it goes, '
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!' and something inside the door actually scratches the glass as it goes down."
"
Really." Service rep is tired, so tired of me. Service rep wishes I would stop touching things.
"It's a physically painful sound. I've almost murdered two In-N-Out people and a bank teller with it."
Service rep wishes I would just go deaf and leave him alone.
I was so excited when I bought this car. Part of that excitement was just the upgrade factor; I'd been driving a Nissan Sentra for eleven years, and I'd always wanted a Miata. And this wasn't any Miata-- this was the Mazdaspeed one, the turbo one. Why not, right? I had a steady, well-paying job, it was only like three grand more, and hell, I was financing pretty much the whole thing anyway. Exactly the kind of caution-to-the-wind situation they warned us about at Bankruptcy Camp.
And it
is fast, I'll give it that. It's fast as hell. If someone pulls out in front of me, I can pass that asshole and cut him off faster than you can tell me it's a bad idea. But it's also very, very small. I was so blinded by rebates at the dealership I didn't grasp how tiny it really is. Randy can't even ride in it, he physically can't work it out, his organs and his cartilage object too strongly. I think if I had thought it through at the time I might have reconsidered. I'm not a fan of small places. I get claustrophobic wearing a hoodie. Thinking about it now, I'm surprised I don't get panicky about the tight squeeze in there more often. But I guess I'll chalk that up to all the adrenaline I release just trying to
stay alive in it.
You know what won't save your life if you roll your car at seventy on the highway? A canvas roof. I remember asking the salesperson what I was supposed to do if it rolled.
"It won't."
I wasn't even that curious, I was just trying to appear mildly prudent in front of Randy. I felt I should do something to make up for the fact that I'd just come ridiculously close to signing off on an $800 tint for two tiny windows.
Financing, you see. Apparently Bankruptcy Camp didn't take.
"No, seriously," I pressed. "If it rolls, what are my chances? Ballpark me."
"It won't roll."
I'm going to scramble out on a limb here and say you don't want to roll one. The salesperson did everything but clamp his hands over his ears to avoid the question.
So... for real, what happens if you roll one? As the woman who rides around with the top of her skull approximately one quarter inch ABOVE the steel frame of her car every day, I'LL tell you what happens: NOTHING GOOD,
that's what. The time I don't spend passing people at ridiculous speeds I spend calculating my odds of catastrophic failure. Given that whole "quarter inch" thing I mentioned previously, I've come up with an alternative rolling game plan: if some uncontrollable freeway situation dictates I roll the car, I will simply lean over ninety degrees into the passenger seat, thereby sparing the top quarter-inch of my skull the inconvenience of scraping off.
There.
Problem solved.
The paramedics will arrive on scene-- sirens off, as witnesses to the wreckage will have assured them there could be no survivors-- only to find me lying there, scared to death, supine and sideways underneath the tattered canvas top. Alive thanks only to my ninja reflexes and a smart, totally feasible game plan.
"Wow!" the fireman will say, peering down at me, "That's amazing! I can't believe you're alive! You have to be the smartest, most attune driver I've ever seen! Hey, let's get you out of there!"
Then he'll reach his strong, gloved hand into the smoking wreckage of my Miata and he will attempt to lower the driver's side window. At which point both our brains will obviously leak out of our ears and our skulls will spontaneously explode.
