thirst

Last week, between money worries and road fatigue, I was so jittery, as soon as I got to my town in Jersey, I had to stop at a liquor store and buy a cold six pack of O'Doul's. K and I gave up alcohol for Lent (after we lent our livers to Mardi Gras and despite the fact she's never been Catholic and I'm only nominally so). Zero-point-five-percent alcohol by volume notwithstanding, I figured the placebo effect would be just as good at calming down my nerves over cancelled insurance, nonexistent job prospects, the end of the world as we know it, and no longer being able to follow the storyline on "Heroes." Once home, I fed the cat, trashed most of the mail the petsitter had so neatly arranged on the table, threw a frozen pizza in the oven, and changed into my "longshoreman leisurewear"--a hoodie sweatshirt, knit cap, fleece vest--and, in further homage to my longshoreman father, sprawled in my favorite (well, only) chair in front of the tv with brew in hand. I think I even scratched...the cat as she furiously rubbed against my legs, meowing protests over my having been gone the whole weekend to Brooklyn after being gone the whole week to Mardi Gras.

After lunch, I donned my black work gloves, an unsolicited "gift" from the Humane Society (guess the gazillion free address labels they usually send aren't enticing enough for donations), and went out to check my engine oil. Huah! My check engine light had clicked on, not in why-does-this-stretch-of-Route 10-remind-us-of-the-night-before-the-apocalypse, Louisiana, not in no-people-anywhere-but-strip-malls-aplenty-and-chickens-pecking-on-the-side-of-the-interstate, Tennessee, not in why-is-there-an-insane-asylum-across-from-our-motel, Virginia, not even in the first pass through back in what's-that-smell-ah-it's-home, NJ, but the moment I left Brooklyn. K would say it's a sign. The barely smudged end of the dipstick confirmed that the poor car was just thirsty after its 2,000 mile marathon.