High Contrast Stress…

Yesterday ended on a weird note. One that unfortunately is no longer a surprise to me.

Living on the edge of a twist.

I had a financial meeting. A stressful one, but one that is helping to solve some things. In the midst of legalities and papers and all the insurance stuff that still isn’t settled from John’s care, and my son’s care and the rest of us.

I left the meeting feeling like, ok, we have a direction at least. There’s a plan.

It’s not a perfect place yet, as there are several pieces of data to sort out still, but having a plan is always better than not knowing what the hell you’re doing.

On the way home, it dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten all day. Just wasn’t time. And I was about to pass this little hole-in-the-wall taco place I know of, where the shredded beef tacos are good and the queso even better.

Did I tell you I love tacos?

Literally just about to pass the place. But instead I flip on my signal and turn into the tiny parking lot.

Everything slows down and flows perfectly. I turn, pull into the parking lot and slide right into a perfect parking space that I noted would be easy enough for me to pull out of. Because nothing is more annoying than to park in a too tight spot, in a hole-in-the-wall little parking lot, and not be able to pull back out of either easily.

And the parking spot was waiting for me. Ample room on either side.

I shift into park and then <bonk>. My front wheels slide forward, bounce off the parking barrier and my car rolls backward.

Whut? Hello. Wait…

Did I not put it into park like I thought?

I slam my foot to the brake. I check the dash and see that I’m actually in neutral, though when I look at my shifter, it’s in park.

I’m confused, but braking hard, I rework my shifter and it slides around the center console like butter.

Something is definitely broken. And as usual, everything happens to me on a Friday, around 5pm. W.t.h.

As it turns out, in the instant that I was parking, the shifter cable broke in the neutral position, right as I shifted from drive to park.

In that instant.

Which means it was quite suddenly and permanently stuck in neutral.

Did I tell you my car has nearly 200,000 miles of experience?

When a shifter cable goes, it’s really a matter of luck when/where/how it will happen and in what gear. It can get stuck in drive, park or neutral if the cable breaks.

And I just happened to want a taco. And with a working emergency brake, just happened to park in the perfect spot for a tow truck to back into the parking lot and load my car up. A tow truck they told me would take an hour to get there, but was in fact there in 15 minutes.

Did I tell you I’ve poured over $6000 into keeping my car running since John died?

Yeah. I don’t qualify for loans yet. I gotta keep this baby going. Thankfully a friend thinks they can do the work for me.

But weird stuff keeps happening to it.

And yet, I just happen to be in the right place, safe and at the right time.

Even got a taco.