LJI S11 Wk11 pt.2 - If the Creek Don't Rise
Do you believe in fate? I never really have, and my family is notably non-religious, but there's one exception we all agree on: my old car, a slightly battered silver Mazda Protege, was doomed.
Shortly after we married, my husband and I traded in both our cars for one new one we would share, a Saturn station wagon that was perfect for our then-business vending at the flea market, Renaissance Faires, and scifi/fantasy conventions. Unfortunately the wagon was a lemon, and after a few years she bit the dust, loudly and inconveniently on the highway, never to roll again.
We were broke as hell at the time, and went through a few super-cheap temporary "beaters" before we got to a point where we could buy something decent. That car became primarily my husband's because I could get to work by bus from where we lived, but eventually I got to itching for a car of my own. It didn't have to be great - it just had to be MINE.
I had an image come to mind that surprised me - one of those small, boxy sedans like a 1990s Toyota Corolla. It was the weirdest "dream car" ever, but it kept popping into my head, and eventually one popped into my driveway.
A couple of months after I started thinking about this, my aunt emailed me - completely out of the blue - to ask if Richard and I wanted a second car. She explained that her son had bought a new vehicle now that he was out of college with a job, and didn't need their extra. They had planned to sell it to their neighbor, but if I wanted it it was mine.
I flew up to NY and drove it back. She got decent gas mileage, loved winding mountain roads, and she was MINE. I was in heaven.
That fall, Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast. Long Beach, on Long Island NY, was hit hard. To make a long story short, my aunt and uncle's house flooded badly and - as happens when the streets fill with ocean water - their cars were totaled.
Now hold that thought.
About a year later, Richard and I were out shopping, and it started to rain. It didn't just rain, it rained BUCKETS - so much that it was impossible to see to drive, so we stopped for lunch to wait it out. When we got back to our townhouse, I was momentarily furious, because our neigbor's car was parked up on the sidewalk right in front of our front door. What the HELL??
He came running out to move the car and explain. There had been a huge rainstorm, and so much water rose in the parking lot that the big trash cans had been carried from one end to the other like boats on a river - a rough river, from the look of the video I saw later. And he was worried his car would get flooded, so he drove up onto the sidewalk.
Our houses all had inches of water soaking the carpets and pooling in the kitchens. I lost a lot of books, all the old vinyl albums (at least the covers) I'd had since high school, an area rug I truly loved...and my car. When I looked through the window the floor in front of the front seats had six inches of standing water in it, and when I opened the door the mildew smell had already started to bloom. My baby was toast, as the insurance adjuster would confirm the next day.
Part of it had been the rain, but not all. Our complex stood beside a woodsy area with biking and hiking trails running through it - running alongside Bolin Creek. The creek had overflowed its banks, which it occasionally did a little bit, and this time because of the volume of the rain it had just kept rising and rising.
The creek was back to normal in day or so, but it took months to repair our apartment - months of workmen wandering in and out, the floors ripped up, the bottom two feet of the walls taken out. And the fans! Oh my god the roaring of the giant fans meant to dry things out nearly drove me insane. We had to live in the upstairs rooms exclusively, except to use the kitchen. Frankly, the whole process sucked.
Shortly afterward I apologized to my aunt about the car and she laughed. "We were going to sell it to the lady right down the block from us. It would have gotten drowned when Sandy hit. You actually gave it an extra year."
I'll always remember my little Mazda with affection, but it seems her fate was written in the stars.