So what do I do? Do I try to dig it up and toss it in the garbage? Do I remind myself that I have absolutely no reason to be pissed off. Do I do my best to overcome this impending bad mood, and focus on the fact that today will be a good day?
No, no, no. What I do is far more unhealthy. I water that little seed. I tend to it. I talk to it. I nurture it, encouraging growth, until it sprouts forth, fully formed; an irreversible bad mood.
And I don’t know why I do it, but I do. I always have. Something about being angry, upset, pissed off…It just makes me feel good, or something. Deep, maybe. I feel like I have a reason to listen to my melancholy playlist on my iPod, and I have a reason to roll my eyes and speak in clipped, angry sentences. Misery is my favorite kind of company, and I’m happy to make it feel welcome. I offer it a drink, a blanket, a good book. Come on in, Misery. Make yourself at home! You’ll be here a while, perhaps you’d like a pillow? I hate the way I do it, the way I, once I have that seed of permission to do so: I focus only on the negative.
- Like the car that blocked my clear path out of the driveway.
- The empty sugar container.
- The one piece of hair that won’t get the fuck off of my forehead already.
- The way my fingers won’t cooperate with the keyboard and just type what I want to type.
- The $700 I need spent on new brakes.
But, more than anything, I take it out on DH. I start focusing on everything he hasn’t done. But chief among his sins are my brakes. For days, he’s been promising to get me a good price on the brakes my car is in desperate need of. Since Friday, when a new mechanic scared the shit out of me by saying that my beloved almost-new brakes were dry rotted and required immediate replacing to avoid the inevitable accident that is just around the corner, I’ve been worried with every other car I pass on the road. Obviously, I cannot live this way.
So the mechanic is on the case, researching the price of the brakes I want. And, in the meantime, I’m staying off of the interstate and driving only when I have to, because not only is it scary to have your brakes give out, but it’s also embarrassing. Because I don’t want to be the girl with the bad brakes on the side of a busy road, helpless and crying. Because that’s exactly what will go down if I don't have them fixed. So, naturally, it is imperative for me to get these brakes. Now. If not sooner. So that I can drive from point A to point B without the nervous breakdown that accompanies every pothole or bump or acceleration in the road. DH said, initially, that he’d help me with the brakes, as he has a buddy who can get them for me at wholesale. I knew he wouldn’t get anywhere over the weekend, but I expected, surely, that on Monday he’d have it all squared away for me. But every day since then, I’ve heard the same thing: “I got so busy. But I got you a ballpark. You’re looking at anywhere from $600 to $750.” Wow. Thanks. That’s some ballpark. “Just hold out till tomorrow,” he continues. “I’ll have an exact price for you then.” I’ve gone through two tomorrows, and have yet to get a price. I’m still waiting, as per his instruction. And against my better judgment.
The thing about it is, I’m not the kind of gal whose ears spontaneously slam shut when some grease-covered guy starts talking about cars. I’ve driven old cars forever. And not “old” in the “classic” sense, but “old” in the “I’m too cheap to buy a new car, so I’ll drive this one till it dies, thankyouverymuch” sense. I’ve been responsible for keeping these cars in running condition, having replaced clutches, starters, transmissions, water pumps, exhaust systems, suspensions and a myriad of other fun, very costly parts on the few cars I could claim as my own. Granted, I did not crawl underneath the car and replace these things myself, but I did take them to a mechanic and have them replaced. And that counts, by proxy, right?
So it was a diversion from my norm to have DH go about getting the brakes for me, when normally this was something I’d be forced to take care of myself. “So this is what it’s like to have a husband who wants to help you, to take care of you,” I thought. Back on Friday. Before I realized it was more of an offer in theory, as he thought we were in no rush to get the brakes replaced.
So, this morning, while I dialed his number at work a third time to find out about those fucking brakes, and he said he was swamped and could I call back in two hours or so, I lost it. As he spoke, his voice hurried and clearly preoccupied, I thought, “This is why you can’t depend on anyone but yourself. Because when someone says they’re going to help you, they’ll always let you down. Unless it’s your dad or your mom, they will always let you down, put you on the back burner, assign you a low level of importance. Learn your lesson now. Because this? This is what happens when you let yourself be the little woman, even for a day.” “Forget it,” I told him in a shaky voice, dripping with anger. “Your prices are more expensive anyway, without mounting them. I’m just going to order them from the mechanic.”
“Are you sure?” he said, still paying half-attention to me. “Because it’s only a difference of, like, thirty bucks or something for a better quality brake. But, I mean, brakes are brakes, right? Do what you want to do, I’m supporting your decision.” He finished with a laugh, like this was some little joke that we were both in on. Oh, how funny, I’ll support her decision to pick her own brakes like a big girl.
“Yeah. Well, thanks,” I said curtly.
Like a flower blossoming on one of those elapsed-time nature shows, my bad mood erupted. This was the icing on the cake, the final fertilization that made my bad mood’s sapling healthy enough to become full-blown flora. This is my safety, I thought. This isn’t me asking him to check on a book that I might like to buy one day in the future, this is ME, driving down the road with brakes that may or may not give out at any given second, resulting in a loss of control and, naturally, me in some horrible accident. If the situation were reversed, I’d have gotten him prices, suggestions, AND a fucking appointment to have it done by now. Thanks for nothing. DH.
We exchanged hurried (his) and forced (mine) pleasantries before hanging up, where I slammed the handset of my work phone onto its receiver with a force that I thought would surely cause the hard plastic casing of the phone to shatter. I fought tears while I searched for the mechanic’s number to order the damn brakes already. When my cell phone rang. With DH's number.
“Hello?” I said, my voice flat, dead and clearly unhappy.
“Baby? It’s me. Listen, you didn’t order those brakes yet, did you?”
“No.” Huffy, like a kid.
“Well don’t. I’m going to look into it here as soon as I’m done, and then we’ll talk about it tonight, okay? You don’t have to order them right now, do you?”
“Uh, yes I do.” To avoid certain death, duh. “I don’t want them to give out while I’m driving.”
“You won’t,” he said. Though how he can be certain of that, I don’t know. “Trust me. Don’t order them yet, and I’ll tell you exactly what it’ll cost. We’ll figure it out together. Okay?”
I sighed and offered a childish “Fie-nuh,” and hung up.
And now I’m in a holding pattern. I’m waiting for his professional opinion, and fielding phone calls from the mechanic, who’s telling me he can get me in tomorrow if I order the brakes today.
And while my frustration with this particular facet of my life has been building for three days now, it’s only magnified by a million because it culminated today. Of all days. Instead of thinking, “He’s a busy man. He wants to help. I can wait,” I’m thinking, “Don’t offer your fucking help if you can’t fucking help me in a timely fucking fashion.”
This is not healthy.
Thank god I have my kickboxing class tonight; I could use the kicking and punching to relieve this aggression inside of me. You know, as long as my brakes don’t give out and explode on my way to the gym, that is.
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