Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

Though it was one of the few things that happened too early to be officially recorded on my blog, some of you may remember that on my first day as a Spartanburg resident, I hit a parked car in a Salvation Army parking lot, took out my right taillight (while causing no harm to the other car, which was practically a tank), and then got caught by a “good samaritan” when I tried to drive away (there’s no sense waiting around for the police when the other guy’s alright, right? wrong, apparently). If you don’t remember this story, you can refer to the first article the Spartanburg Herald-Journal ever wrote about us AIRs as this was the focal point of their portrait of me, characteristically ignoring anything of depth and substance in favor of snappy fluff…but that’s another story…Anyway, it was a horrible mess– the woman who’s car I hit was totally unbalanced– she was practically complaining of whiplash though she wasn’t even in the parked car when I hit it (did I mention there was no damage?). I cried and tried to tell her that it was my first day in Spartanburg, and my first time really hitting the road in five years. She was less than compassionate. Her mother, however, took me aside and assured me that her daughter was a “good Christian” and wasn’t going to take advantage of this. (Welcome to Spartanburg, Arielle! Even the assholes are saved!) I drove around without a taillight for weeks until my good friends down the street at Maaco helped get me back in shape.

Well, it took half a year, but I’ve done it again. And to think that just last night, I was laughing to the other AIRs about how my car has somehow become the “family car,” despite the fact that I am easily the scariest driver in the bunch.

Rachel is giving a reading in Michigan this week. This morning, on our way to beginning the agonizing drive to the Charlotte Airport (which I HATE, it gets longer every time), I somehow managed to back straight into A MACK TRUCK stopped in the parking lot dropping off food at the restaurant (which I DOUBLY HATE, for reasons too numerous to list here, but that I’m sure I’ll get to in the future). On the bright side, it’s impossible for my pathetic toy car to damage the MACK TRUCK, so I don’t have to worry about anything in that department. In fact, the truck driver was pretty apologetic, for reasons I don’t understand.

Now, I don’t mean to sound so angry at everybody else– I’ve got nobody to blame but myself, and it’s no secret that I can’t drive– but HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO PAY FOR THIS THIS TIME??????!!!!!

On the way back from Charlotte, Derya and I pulled over at a gas station for some refreshments. This is what we saw (but in daylight, of course):

We had no idea how long we had been driving like that. We called Brian to ask him what to do and tried our best to describe the scene. “Does it look kind of like a gory eyeball popped out of its socket?” Derya and I agreed that that was exactly what it looked like. He told us to disconnect it as best we could and keep on driving…Oh dear…

To continue on with the theme of redundancies, I took this picture the other night:

I know you’re probably sick and tired of pictures of my parking lot at this point, but I guess my point is that, well, I’m not. In this town of nothin’-much-doin’, it’s been kind of nice watching the seasons change, and marking photographically the affect that it has had on my most favorite, always-present backyard scene. I absolutely love it when it’s foggy…