This Will Be Different

not ours--but a twin from Google Images

As I mentioned here yesterday, our 2010 Corolla died last week--well, its battery did. As I said, I'd been starting it and letting it run about twenty minutes a week, but--annoyed by our inattention otherwise?--it croaked. Wouldn't start. Take that, it seemed to growl.

I just called Don Joseph Toyota in Kent (with whom we've done business since the mid-1970s!), and they now, in these COVID-Days, offer a pickup and delivery service. So ... on Wednesday afternoon they will come over and pick up the car, jump-start it (I warned them!), drive it back to Kent for its scheduled servicing, return it when they're done.

I also warned the service technician that we hadn't driven much lately. She replied, "No one is."

It is weird, recently, not being in the car at all for days on end. Since, well, since birth, I've been in a car just about every single day. The first car I remember was an old green Chrysler, and I trained my parents not to leave me alone inside when one day (left alone while they were in the grocery store) I used the cigarette lighter to burn attractive patterns all over the dashboard.

I'm lucky I'm still here to type that previous paragraph.

Even in my retirement years I've been driving (or riding along) every day. I went to the health club almost every afternoon; in the evenings, Joyce and I would go for a ride (generally culminating in a drive-thru). We went out to movies--plays--bookstores--Kohl's--Office Depot--the grocery store--restaurants--whatever.

Last week was unique: We actually went out twice--once to Seidman, once to Acme Fresh Market here in Hudson to pick up our grocery order for the week. Usually, we're out only once--to the grocery store. As a result (as I mentioned yesterday), we have not been to the gas station in two months. (Though it's just about time.)

Cars, of course, have always meant freedom for people who have them. Coming and going. I still remember the thrill I felt when my parents let me drive somewhere by myself for the first time (I got my license in November 1960). An un-caged bird--or, better, lion. (Tony the Tiger quaked in my presence.)

But now--thanks to COVID-19, thanks to aging, thanks to ...--I am rarely un-caged, and I am no more a lion. More like a gerbil, I think, spinning around on the wheel of routine in his wee enclosure.