That
car was my life. I put about 100,000
miles on that Honda, and it never even broke a sweat. I drove that ole’ girl home every weekend, 3
hours one way, from College Station when I was at A&M, and everywhere else
all over God’s green earth. I sang my
lungs out blasting Christina Aguilera, Amy Lee, and Dashboard Confessional all
along the way.
So when
I made the call to her CRAPPY insurance the days following the accident, you
can imagine I was rather PISSED that they only wanted to give me half of what
the car was worth. I won’t even get
started on how retarded Louisiana car insurance is. So what happened? Nothing, I got jipped on the value and there
was nothing to do about it because it wouldn’t have been cost effective. My new position was no car, no money to
replace no car.
New
Orleans isn’t such a bad place to live if you are without vehicle. There are plenty of means of public
transportation. I had always thought
that the street car was so touristy, considering every time one passed me by on
St. Charles there were about 20 camera lenses aggressively pointing out of the
windows. Turns out, though, that I had a
direct line to get to work. All I had to
do was go up Oak 4 blocks, hop on, ride all the way down St. Charles to
Peniston, walk 7 blocks, and voilah!
Only problem was this process took about 40 minutes. Street cars aren’t exactly the fastest moving
vehicles on the planet. That’s not to mention
the fact that sometimes 30 minutes alone could be spent just waiting for the
car to show up to the stop. Oh yeah, did
I mention it was freezing cold outside during this time of the year? In summer time it’s hotter than hades, and in
winter you freeze your ass off.
Why? Once again it’s the humidity
factor. Those water crystals in the air
feel like tiny needles on your skin when it gets anywhere close to 40
degrees.
God
bless Pennsylvania. She was living pretty
close to me at the time, and since we worked together virtually every morning,
she began offering to swing by and pick me up.
December was upon us, and the weather lady had forecasted the slight
chance of snow in the morning.
(Reference: we are still in 2008)
The next day Will came running into my room like a little kid on Christmas
morning and sang out “IT’S SNOWING!” I
rolled over, looked at my phone, and it was 7:00 a.m. I remember thinking to myself, “Hell must be
freezing over if Will is awake at 7 in the morning.”
I
rolled out of bed, threw some warmish clothes on, and opened the front
door. Sure enough, there was a gray
sludge covering the ground and a micro-snowman sitting atop the trash bin. Neighbors up in the down the street were
outside on their porches also watching the weirdest sight I think I’ve ever
seen. It was snowing in New Orleans,
like really snowing. I have some
pictures of this somewhere, I’ll have to dig through my archives and upload a
couple. Once again, thank goodness for Pennsylvania, because being from
Pennsylvania and all, she knew how to drive in snow. Will walked me up the street to Rue De La
Corse so we could see what the street car track looked like. I will forever have a picturesque moment
painted in my mind of the time I saw the beautiful street car, covered in snow,
with a Christmas wreath on the front coming up Carrollton Ave. The entire drive to work that morning was a
little scary, slipping here and there, but beautiful. By the time we got to the restaurant at 10,
all the snow had nearly melted. HA.
No, I
didn’t have a car. I didn’t have any
prospects for a new one either. I felt
for sure though, that everything was going to be alright. The city was putting on a beautiful show for
the spoiled Texas kid.
