What goes around comes around

Thirteen+ years ago this past July, I gave birth to a five-weeks-premature baby. Two weeks later we got on a plane and moved to Texas where I did not know one single human being in the entire state. The ENTIRE state. The Big Boy was working at pulling a manufacturing plant back from the brink of insolvency and didn't have time for us.

It happens.

The next summer, I had a healthy baby, bouncing around in Texas. TBB still didn't have time for us. Somewhere in here, the air conditioning went out on my car as in...I had no air. In Texas, and if you've never spent a summer in Texas? Don't. God did not mean for people to take up permanent residency in a place where dogwoods and azaleas can't live. It's just not in the books.

Having said that, I was in permanent residency. In the summer. And there was no air conditioning in my car. The week it happened, TBB was out of town and I was on my own. His plant had this car...a 15-year-old Fort LTD. The Big Boat. They used it to pick up out-of-town visitors from the airport because it held six people, comfortably, and had a trunk the size of an average septic tank. It was a conversation piece to end all conversation pieces...big, roomy, luxurious at one point, and with attitude. And it had air conditioning.

So I went to the plant and confiscated the car. TBB is out of town. I have no air. Give me that car.

They did. I drove it for a couple of days, waiting on TBB to get back into town so I could go buy a new car, and on the third day...the air conditioning in The Big Boat went out. Totally went out as in...I had no air. Not a speck and oh, my! THERE SEEMS TO BE A PATTERN HERE! Obviously, I am toxic to freon in 100+ degree heat.

The day I lost my shit I had gone to the grocery. With a one-year-old baby. I was driving The Big Boat, with no air and the temperature had been above 100 degrees for the last millenium...or so it felt. I WAS SO HOT. I had on shorts and a t-shirt and Keds and I WAS SO HOT. The baby was hot. WE were hot and there wasn't anything I could do about it and finally?

I was so hot.

And I was fed up. I have driven the same make of car for 22 years and I love my car but on that day, I WAS SO HOT and I had a notion and my notion involved a Subaru SUV. Can't remember the name of it, but I had been eyeballing it for a couple of months and I WAS SO HOT and so...I went to buy a car.

We were making a LOT of money back then...a whole lot of money. (This was Clinton money so we all know...THAT ain't happening now!) And I was pissed off and I WAS SO HOT and so I pulled The Old Boat up to the Subaru dealer, got my sweaty pissed-off self out, hauled my sweaty pissed-off baby out of the backseat, and walked into that dealership to buy a car. I didn't need a loan...I was going to write a check and they could call the bank and verify it and we would be done.

And I would have air.

People, I stood in that dealership for 20 minutes and not one single human being ever spoke to me. I was soaking wet with sweat...no makeup and my hair stuck to my head. I was driving a trailer trash car, wearing trailer trash clothes, carrying a sweaty squalling trailer trash baby wearing just a diaper...and I had a checkbook in my pocket. And no one ever spoke to me. Because I looked like I was just looking for cold air and while that was right? I was ready to pay for it. There were circumstances.

Finally, I went home (where the air conditioning worked.) And when TBB got back into town we drove down to my regular Volvo dealership and bought the same car I had, four years newer. And never looked back.

Go read FatBoyFat., his Friday post. And if you're in marketing? Learn, and be afraid. Because people like me? It's going on 14 years and I wouldn't drive a Subaru if you gave it to me. And the dealership? It's in the HEB section on the loop in Fort Worth. Or, it was.

I hope it's gone out of business.