Me and My Prius

A friend told me her parents were thinking of buying a Prius and asked me to write her and tell her what I thought about mine. After I got started, I sort of thought everyone might want to know…
I bought the Prius in March of 06 and it was love at first sight. The relationship continues to work well and I can’t say we’ve ever even had the hint of an argument. When I approach it always makes that little beep-beep sound and immediately opens the door for me, just me, and I feel very special every time. Gas mileage hovers around 48 mpg, better actually when I’m taking a long trip and regardless of what they say, it’s worse when I’m in the city. Of course, no one who actually knows me has ever accused me of having too much patience, and I do tend to take off a bit fast at stoplights on occasion. I’m sure a bit more of a conservative driver could easily keep the mpg at 50. When my daughter borrows my car the mileage goes down, so I have to assume she is more like me than I am, or maybe my car is just pouting that we’re not together.

It takes a while to get over the “gee wiz” factor of the Prius, but I soon became very spoiled. I hate having to drive any other car. The no key thing is so space age that sometimes I get into my husband’s car and start punching the dashboard before I realize I have to actually get the key out of my pocketbook. The back up camera is useful, but you will have a hard time not looking over your shoulder. That’s probably just as well because you can only see directly behind you on the screen. If a car is coming at a right angle to you it won’t appear in the camera until the second before you hit it. BTW, I have only one tiny scratch on my baby, made during my daughter’s watch in DC (shakes fist at sky).

She’s not the only one who occasionally makes mistakes, and together we, well, let’s say we have adventures. Like recently when we went camping and I forgot to fill up the gas tank. We’re driving down I-64 and I notice that the car is getting really good gas mileage, 100 miles to the gallon in fact. That’s weird I thought. Suddenly a warning light I never saw before appeared on the dashboard and I pulled over immediately. We got the owner’s manual out trying to decipher the message from among the seemingly endless group of urgent warnings and finally my girl asked, “Mom, did you fill the car up with gas?” Oh, bad word. My husband drove it last and I have never known him not to fill the tank. After all it’s only an 11 gallon tank and that will take us over 500 miles. I drive by a lot of gas stations, laughing.

The only thing I had trouble getting used to initially was the visibility. It’s a little different and took some adjustment, but now I have absolutely no problems. The sound system is wonderful and I love all the neat little features like the fold down seats in the back, the twin glove compartments, and the ability to plug my ipod directly into the radio. What’s next for me is a new Prius. I found out that mine is worth more now than when I bought it, and the 50,000 mostly highway miles I put on it make no difference. I can get a brand new one for the same price as I can get for my current one. I know, I’m fickle and the poor car is going to wonder what it did wrong. Even though I know that all relationships have to come to an end I hate to think about the day when I have to tell my car, “It’s nothing you did, honestly. It’s not you, it’s me.”

I have been strangely quiet, but not from lack of words. They tumble around in my head like children wanting to be born, kicking tiny feet and hands inside my mind until my very brain feels bruised. The almost full moon assaulted me tonight, low in the sky, glowing orange. I know most surely what I want to say, but those words are forbidden me. I swore I would not let my voice be muffled, but that is exactly where I find myself. I am not alone in my cage. Responsibility and reality trap most of us eventually, but not everyone can see the bars, the study lock, certainly not the key lying on the table across the room, so near, but unreachable.

I was in DC last Sunday visiting my friend who is gay and has excellent reasons why he must live his life half in shadows. We had a delightful lunch at a nice Italian place near Dupont Circle. We talked around the world and back, me only half unaware of my surroundings as I focused on this strange friendship we share. The light finally dawns on me that the café is totally occupied by men, and none of them are looking at me except my friend across the table. Perhaps he is pleased that it took me so long to notice. Our relationship is unclassifiable, but he tells me I am more beautiful every time he sees me. Like my husband, he seems to look past the tricks that time has played on the surface of my skin and sees all the passion of a woman’s soul. His reason for being drawn to the fire with in me is a mystery to us both, but it is obviously something beyond physical attraction.

When I was last in Denver a man told me I was elegant, classy, and sexy. He said I was amazing and I waited patiently for him to add, “for your age”. He was not the first to flatter me and I hope not the last, but I just smile shyly at them all and say thank you. I know that when I walk away they will turn to someone else, because their desire is no deeper than tonight, or maybe part of tomorrow. They are gamblers all, these men who live life on the road. They love the unpredictable potential possibility, like the rush of rolling the dice, the gunshot draw to an inside straight. The man I married does not play poker, and he lies awake tortured on nights when I am away.

My friend left DC Thursday for his other life in a quiet suburb of Chicago. There will be grass in his front yard that needs mowing, children to comfort, a life so traditional that no one who sees him would know how thinly he wears the veneer of conventional values. Likewise, the sugar shell of my own conformity gives no clue to what sleeps beneath the surface. I have frequently let it be known that I am not a gambler, but I am a risk taker, one with a finely honed sense of survival. Tonight I draw my curtains tight against the assault of the orange moon and focus on the life I have chosen. The moon nods wisely at my confession, and the river has always known me, but among humans there are but a few who see beyond the things I let them. Perhaps you are one of them.

So much for Justice

The overwhelming stench of skunk woke me from a dark and profound sleep. I had been wrestling ineffectually with the demons of the last two days as we deadheaded through the dark rainy mountains of West Virginia on the way back to Richmond. My husband swears we didn’t hit the poor creature, but this was not the sort of odor that sits like smoke in the hollows in the daytime, it was more like the mountain had been set on fire using skunk oil as an accelerant. Windows down, the rain cascaded in, closed I gasp and choked at the eye watering aroma. I know how bad it is when my husband who is blind and deaf to smell catches the edge of it and remarks, “Oh, that is skunk, isn’t it?” The understatement lingers like the scent for the remainder of our 700-mile trip. After twisting about in my seat I finally give control back to the snake pit of churning emotion inside me and the smell becomes a background for my black thoughts.

It seemed like a normal security screening when we came into the rural Kentucky Circuit court. I had scaled down my pocket book to my single red alligator Prada billfold, the one my daughter bought for me off the back of a truck in DC. I felt a secret warmth of wickedness as I put it in the plastic WalMart basket and stepped through the metal doorway. An assault of red lights and loud beeping made me turn with what I hoped was a look of incredulity and innocence to the gray hair deputy sitting behind the table. I assumed it worked because he declined my offer to remove earrings as he waved me on through with a “you’re fine”. My husband behind me did not trigger the detectors and we nested in solitary conceit in one of the black chairs bolted together in a row down the long hall. A few minutes later another party arrived, a family of four, and they all walked through the gateway together without pausing. The lights flashed and alarms binged and we waited for the strip search of the group who looked like refugees from the dust bowl years. “What cute girls” exclaims the deputy as he waves them through. “They got trouble written all over them,” he jokes.

“You’re right about that,” says the mother laughing. So, I think to myself, these are friends of the officer, but still, he seems a bit derelict not to at least search her bag. Soon the next group approaches and the scene is repeated. In the next half hour several dozen people pass through the gates all of them but one triggering the security alarms, none of them checked. At least ten people slipped by through the exit, not even bothering with the gate and the smiling deputy standing guard. I will give him credit though; he asked all of us if we had a gun, knife, or any weapon. One man handed him the pocketknife he carried and picked it up later, another joked with him that he was packing. All of them went though without incident or search.

I sat praying that my brother, furious as he was with me for bringing this action, did not trip the alarms. Finally he arrived in his white sneakers and knit sport shirt, our fortunate family genes making him look much younger than his 70 years. He sat with his lawyer across the hallway and looked through me with no hint of recognition. It’s been two years since I’ve been in town, years in which I’ve changed in attitude and appearance. I recognized my lawyer whom I have never met by his sharp navy blue suit and because he an I are the only ones dressed for the occasion of removing my brother as executor of my Dad’s will after two and a half years of inattention. I asked him what are the chances of losing. He tells me honestly that in any other jurisdiction the case would be over before a word was spoken, but in this small town he is uncertain.

The judge did not look up at me as he asked, “Who is Elaine Haley?”

With no sound coming from my advocate I reply, “I am your honor.” Still, he did not glance in my direction. It was over in a manner of minutes and the judge set a new date for the presentation of evidence, July 9. Everyone agrees to the time, as I stand mute and frustrated, my trip wasted.

The flight through dark mountains goes on interminably, marked only by brief rushed stops. All the way home I pray to whatever gods might be listening, even petitioning my dead father to intervene. At two in the morning we arrive back home and gratefully fall into a familiar bed, familiar arms, too tired even for sex, too exhausted for anything but the release of sleep.

My father does not come to rescue me in dreams. Only the highway winds into the distance, black and uncertain, and the mountains loom, cold and unfathomable.