Denial, Repression, Sublimation...

...and many more frankly Freudian defense mechanisms were in play yesterday when my associations to the Beautiful Big Black Refrigerator did not lead to the obvious, hideous, real-world consumer imperative that is staring me in the face.

Remember: I am a woman who quails -- seriously quails -- at buying socks and shampoo. Who considers shopping lower than several unmentionable bodily functions in the hierarchy of shame and disgust.

I (gasp) must buy (oh oh oh oh) a (ululululululululate) car.

Or, as some might chipperly say "purchase a vehicle."

I am beseiged by TV-fueled marketing images. All those ROTATING cars. Yes, rotating. In ads, they invariably rotate. Or have some luscious babe draped over them. Or rotate, draped w/babe. As they navigate (and despoil) tract upon tract of wilderness. At breakneck speeds that we are cautioned (in small print) not to undertake ourselves, not being "trained drivers" on "closed tracks."

Or that cosy ad of a couple buying a car on the internet. Clicking on all the options. "Building" their new car, I think the ad calls it. As if they were Simone Weil toiling in the Renault plant. The dude wants a cool stereo. The chick deems that a tad (only a tad, mind you) frivolous. They smile, exude acceptable degrees of greed, all will be well, etc etc etc.

Some inarticulate fellow named Pete from Planet Insurance explained to me why he has decided to give me $7000 for my poor dead car. Coulda been $8000, coulda been $6500, so, landing somewhere in the arbitrary midzone between the two Sources he consulted, he came up w/ 7000. Hmmm. That's not very much, I demur. He waxed indignant. I waxed silent.

I really liked the letter I got from Cellphone Dude From Hell's insurance company reminding me several times that it was my responsibility to "mitigate" something so that I could receive the excellent service that I deserved. Mitigate what, asshole, I wanted to scream: mitigate the ugly gash in the side of my dead car ? (The photos we took of it, and scraggly-haired, be-collared me, resplendant in Hawaiian shirt and plaid, posing next to it came yesterday.) Mitigate my broken neck ? Shouldn't Cellphone Dude From Hell done a little pro-active mitigating before he ploughed into us ? Mitigate. Sure.

But, yes, I must buy a car.

The horror.