Car troubles

I'm accustomed to having things go wrong with my car. It's fairly old at almost 8 years, and admittedly, I haven't exactly taken it in for regular maintanence, or even to have recalls done. Even after all this abuse and neglect that I and so many others put our vehicles through, there are just some things that you don't expect to go wrong with your car. Some things that, no matter how many times you may have heard the stories from others, just can't happen to you. It's unfathomable.

Right?

My fucking rearview mirror fell off.

I know some of you are immediately thinking of the SIDE-view mirror, knocked off by a careless person opening their car door in the spot next to me, but I assure you that I am of sound mind, and I am talking about the REAR-view mirror. Yes, the one that sits above the dash, smack in the middle of the windshield. No, nothing happened to the window.

It simply fell off. The glue (or whatever that substance is that until recently held the mirror's "stalk" onto my windshield) has given up the ghost. It has ceased to stick. In fact, it's not even the least bit sticky. It is completely devoid of adhesive properties. It is as helium: inert and not bonding with anything.

In a curious juxtaposition of roles, I found myself not trying to refrain from holding a cellphone in my right hand, but rather wielding a disembodied mirror in a futile attempt to see who may be traversing into my blind spot. You can't know how frustrating it is not to have a rearview mirror until you are forced to go without one. It's like when you forget your watch and then spend all day glancing at your bare wrist.

Not two days ago, I had a conversation with my father about how well my car had been running lately. I even knocked on the proverbial wood. Don't get me wrong, however...I'm still VERY glad that my faithful mount hasn't come up with a more expensive affliction, as it is wont to do. This is one of those things that, should I care to, I could fix with duct tape; although I don't think that would do much for the resale value.

So in the grand scheme of things, if this is what gets thrown my way in the genre of car troubles, then I'm quite thankful. But I'm still going to bitch.

Originally posted on Monday, 2002-07-22 at 23:35:41.