Pimp My Ride

I seem to have an aura that isn’t as bright as it should be (wrong color maybe?) or maybe I’m doing penance for treacherous acts committed in a past life. Having moved to Germany, I’ve endured the loss of J’s company and support, unpacked our house, settled the kiddos into a manageable if rigid routine, fought over the (lack of a) phone connection and our furniture order held up in litigation in a Belgian court, watched the van falling apart piece by piece (literally), born the quirks of a newly renovated house, and battled with the health care system to obtain the care Matty requires all while trying to maintain a marginal level of sanity. Mother Theresa I am not; there have been moments where I have not born my situation gracefully or with any kind of admirable fortitude. I’ve removed Radiohead from my iPod playlist as a security measure. I’ve not worn mascara for some time.

I don’t mention this to solicit sympathetic looks and words of encouragement; I’m not trying to earn a gold star or striving to reach martyrdom status. Truthfully, my situation could be worse as J could be deployed for upward of a year at a time, but as it stands my friends and family constantly remind me of the adage, ‘That which does not kill you makes you stronger.’ And here I thought I was already something of an Atlas ;) Instead of Atlas, I feel a bit more like Prometheus, chained to a rock having my eyes pecked out daily by ravenous birds only to have my body regenerate itself at night so that I might endure the same punishment again the following day. Only that the van serves as the birds.

While Mary was visiting, and after our trip to Amsterdam (thanks be to God), the sensor on the rear axle went amuck causing the air shocks to inflate, and inflate, and…inflate. The van looked something like a pointer with its nose to ground, tail in the air. After a certain point, the excessive amount of air in the shocks (not evenly distributed between the right and left side) caused the van to bounce like a plane bobs in turbulence. I felt like I should have put on ‘Office Space’ Michael Bolton music, rolled down my windows and pimped through town as my van bounced like an Impala with slammin’ hydraulics. If only I could have captured the looks of people in the village as I drove by violently bouncing with my precariously perched van (invidious van).

Denied an appointment at the auto shop for two days, Mary stopped a passerby and asked for him to assess whether or not the van was safe to drive. The gentlemen referred us to a self-help type auto shop where the most accommodating Italian gentleman released the air in the shocks. This fixed the problem for a time, but within a few hours time, the van’s shocks inflated again. The next day, the Italian gentleman took me into the pit and showed me how to disconnect my shocks and sensor. I now know more German than I could ever have wished pertaining to a car’s suspension system.

As a result of this unfortunate debacle, Mary became quite familiar with the auto shop in lieu of the German countryside. I had had an idea of all that I wanted to do with her while she was here, but my plans (unlike my shocks) were deflated.

In keeping with my run of misfortune, the day of the appointment arrived and I received a phone call informing me that the only mechanic able to repair the van had taken leave for two weeks and could I please reschedule. Regeneration.