It was a crazy time to decide to venture out, but when the crazy canine at the house needs dog food, one must go. So off I went, bundled in oversized sweats and thermals, as the day started out a little warmer than the day before.
Now, being the new kid in town, I have no past memories of Saturdays before Christmas in Troup County, but to me it seemed like an unusually large number of cars on the streets, and even more so with the people in the mall and at a couple of the retail stores.
I was only going to be gone for a “hot minute.”
The “hot minute” turned out to be three “hot hours” later.
All was going well, until the Green Machine got lost.
Since most of you don’t know me, let me give you a little history. My car is affectionately known to friends, family and readers of the previous publication where I worked, as the Green Machine. It is a dark green older model sedan that has more then just a lot of miles on it, but a lot of stories to tell.
Most of those stories were told in a weekly column at my previous newspaper. Everyone knew about the breakdowns; how my driver’s-side window wouldn’t go up, and now, can’t go down; the numerous times the keys decided to stay in the car and the doors were locked; how my daddy “McGyvored” the power steering leak to stop; the noises that usually signal a breakdown but are really the Green Machines way of talking to me; and, of course, the plethora of times that the parking lot gremlin at the local Walmart would move the car just so I couldn’t find it.
And I mean plethora of times.
The Green Machine has charm - it does. (That smell on the inside is part of the appeal, I swear!)
With the move to LaGrange, things have gone pretty well with the car and me on our adventures, and I have not lost it in any parking lot.
Until Saturday.
I walked out of the mall, pretty pleased with myself for not overspending and being able to make it out of the mall alive with all the crazy Christmas shoppers - and couldn’t find my car.
The Green Machine was gone. I walked up and down three or four aisles in the parking lot and couldn’t find it.
I started to panic, tears formed. My writer’s imagination went running way out in left field. Someone had decided to steal my car out of all the cars in the mall.
It started to sprinkle, and the air got colder. Here I was in a new community more than two hours away from my parents and an hour away from my closest friends, and my car was gone. What was I to do? Can you just imagine that phone conversation? “Hi, it’s Becky. I am at the mall in La-Grange, and well, the car is gone.”
I walked from one end of the mall to another, up and down the parking aisles, pushing the button on my key chain that opens the car’s trunk, hoping against hope.
The tears were coming freely now. Never a quitter, and I really didn’t want to call my daddy to tell him that I had permanently lost the car, I walked a little farther out.
You know where most smart people park their cars? They park them far away from the doors to the mall and other cars. My dad always said he parks like that because we need the exercise.
After Saturday, I know the real reason. They park their cars a distance away so they will be able to find them when they leave the store. Most people at the mall Saturday weren’t thinking like that when they got there.
There it was - in its mud-strewn glory, the Green Machine - about a mile from the store door, next to a smaller, compact, cute Toyota Camry.
I swear my car was smiling.
Reflecting on blessings at Christmas is a natural pastime for most of us. As my Green Machine chugged to start, I gave it a pat.
It may not be a real Lexus, but it is my Green Machine.
Merry Christmas to all of you from this writer, the Green Machine and, of course, Buddy, the crazy canine at home, who decided to eat the couch while waiting for his food.
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