|
|
amusing, how much life reminds me of a scratched record... the kind whose damage isn't noticeable, at first. drop the needle, all begins well... you're lulled into the flow of rhythm, anticipating places where the melody will go. then shit hits the fan. after a fashion. no wonder my last entry was so dour, though not despairing... the irony, i did it to myself. or, at least i set the events into action, through a silly lapse. in the usual Monday mad dash to uproot myself from one life into another, i thought i was doing the right thing... checking the oil, before the hour-and-a-half trip to indentured servitude. the wrong thing was doing several other things while the quart of Castrol was emptying into the crankcase. arranging the baggage in the boot, grabbing a box here, a jacket there, assembling bits and pieces of a fragmented existence... that's Monday, Part 1. left home. stopped at the post office, then the auto parts store for some fuel injector cleaner, then next door for petrol. helped a couple push their expired Ford out of the intersection while the gas was pumping. open road followed. forty miles later, while stuck behind a ten-wheel dump truck, i cursed inwardly at the brackish breath of diesel with which i was becoming intimate. even worse, at stop lights, the perfume of burnt petroleum distillates. then i notice the same fragrance, when there was no other vehicle in sight. UH-Oh. the sputtering little ChristmasTree light of Bevis&Butthead dimly crackled over my head, at that point. i didn't actually remember screwing on the oil filler cap, before the trip began. into the nearest gas station, i shut down, popped the hood latch... and watched the vague wisps of funk tendrilling out of the seams, well before my sweaty ass detached from the seat. dumbass. sitting in the little tar pit between the camshafts: the lonely little displaced cap, luckily not having parted company with the cover that it left Japan with. thankfully, it wasn't the bloody geyser from KillBill that i expected it to be... though blackAmber rivulets sagged from between the bonnet stiffeners on the propped hood. stinky, though... and messier than just one rag could deal with. and so the "skipping" commenced. not so much that it was complete cacophony... just enough that nothing was going to resemble harmony for the rest of the day. one consolation... CDs sound worse when they fuck up. |
|
|
