Musings of Me

My Car, Myself

There is plenty to tell about a person from the contents of his car.

I began pondering this the other day, after swearing violently from sitting on a pair of chopsticks. What, I wondered, would a complete stranger think when he looked into my car?

A quick inventory: My car contains several Michigan maps, maps of every state between Michigan and Florida, two bottles of water, a packet of soy sauce, disposable chopsticks, a box of tissues, and several burned CDs. There is also a roll of paper towel, a plastic disposable poncho, a broken umbrella, an air-pressure gage, one sweater, two discs for Track and Field, an etch-a-sketch, a mini-fan, and my athletic bag. Oh, and I could not possibly forget my collection of pens and notepads, or my tin of Altoids nestled behind the sunscreen in my dash. My MTU window sticker is peeling off the back window.

In addition to this exotic menagerie of items, there is a fine layer of dust all over the front panel. The windows have fingerprints, and even an obvious footprint is prominent on the passenger side of the windshield (this is a legacy from Louise, my Aussie friend who had a bit too much to drink before being deposited into my car by the Gwinnett County Police). Also courtesy of Louise is a stick-on Aussie flag adorning my dashboard.

Yeah, I think I can be painted an eccentric slob.

I can justify the lack of care invested in my car (really). The chopsticks and soy sauce are spares in case I forget to pick them up with my daily lunch order of sushi. The bottles of water I took from the blood clinic I volunteer at (I never have time to drink them when I am working). The maps are a testament to undiminished parental support (actually, they came with the AAA card my parents gave me with the extreme-super-plus coverage because I have a tendency to find trouble).

The tissues are because I had a cold a few weeks back. The roll of paper towel is kept because the moisture condenses on the inside of my car, and the air-pressure gage is because I have a slow leak in my back tire. The sweater is a MI-induced safety measure, while the discs are reminders of the years I spent dedicated to sport. The rest of the items are common sense, save the etch-a-sketch, which is just fun.

I promise to shell out the $10 to wash and vacuum my car when I am certain the fingerprint oils are not the only thing holding my windows in place.

Obviously, my examining the car with an objective view proves difficult. But I do hope that a complete stranger could guess at some of the nuances of my interior décor. Some day, I may not be categorized as eccentric. I, my friends, will be viewed as a woman of sentiment and foresight, as a driver who regards her car as an extension of herself instead of as an overflow storage solution.

Then again, maybe not.

posted by Jill @ 1:48 AM