Let that day be declared lost on which we have not danced.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Need more storage space? A place upon which to pile the detritus of a life lived in limbo, sort of like the kitchen counter only bigger?

Try a car.

In no particular order of importance, here is a list of the crap I recently cleaned off of my 1987 Honda Prelude:

  • 3 mugs half filled with stale coffee and innumerable dead ants.
  • 2 pairs of flip flops.
  • 14 CDs, a head-banging selection ranging from the new Heaven & Hell to some classic Tool.
  • 1 Sony CD/Cassette Boombox with Digital AM/FM Tuner.
  • 2 library books.
  • 27 letters from various agencies who want my money.
  • 7 socks, mostly white.
  • 1 winter jacket, no longer necessary.
  • 1 roll of duct tape.
  • 52 cents in change.

All settled amidst the write-in-it-with-your-finger thick layer of dust that accumulates when a car sits in the garage for several months without its daily trips up and down Indianapolis Road.

To work.

It didn’t turn over, probably because of the little light in my glove box that never goes out, because the door doesn’t stay shut so well anymore, so I had to jump her; she roared to life with a racket punctuated by coughing exhaust and heater vents belching stale air. I backed it out slowly, the metallic grinding a reminder that I need to change the brakes soon, slipped in the brand spankin’ new Dream Theater, reset my Pioneer to deliver power to the subwoofer, cranked it up to 50 to drown out the not-too-subtle clamor old cars make, rolled down my windows . . . and drove.

Blessed normalcy! The familiar tug as it pulls toward the center line. The way my power window buttons rock opposite the way they do in the minivan. The country wind instead of the boxed up air conditioning.

My car and me? We danced.

I start back to work on the 6th of July . . .

[photo credit]