paging Dr. Ganesh

Written from the doctor's waiting room:

I have an appointment in just a few minutes to get my wedding and engagement rings removed. I've gained just enough weight since I put them on last that now they won't come off, not even with soap or sexual lubricant or any amount of force I am able to apply. I guess they'll have to cut it, or something. So here I am at the doctor's office, waiting for this. My appointment is with someone named Dr. Ganesh, which seems deeply and hilariously appropriate.

*****

They're off now. My finger feels weird, has an ingrown indentation. Thankfully I am not tan. They are in my pocket, two ragged and precious half moons of metal and stone. I guess I will get a nice box to keep them in.

A metaphor: Chris took his rings off because they were causing the skin underneath to rot. I couldn't take mine off because they had become way too tight, and had to be cut off by doctors.

Dr. Ganesh was a young and very American person of Indian descent, with a shaved head and appropriately large ears. He was very friendly. While we were waiting for them to get the ring tool, I told him how amused I was that Dr. Ganesh was helping me remove my wedding and engagement ring. He laughed and agreed that it was very funny.

He does not usually hold offices there. Either he's new, or he was conjured by the Universe just for me. Perhaps he holds offices all around the world, conjured when needed to project the right sense of irony for specific situations.

more on my car

I bought my car new. It was my first new car, and potentially my first for a very long time.

Both cars I'd owned up until that point had been hand-me-downs from my parents - the '85 Buick station wagon (two-tone blue! and later, covered with spray paint and stickers) that was mine from '95-99, and the '95 Ford Taurus station wagon that wasn't exactly mine but ended up being my primary conveyance from '99-00.

The Buick in particular was unreliable by the time I got it. I drove that car into the ground, with two cross-country moves and several other long trips, and moving it to western Mass. and Colorado. The couple of times it ran out of gas were my fault. The loose battery terminals causing random power loss and the way one was only able to start it by opening the air filter and sticking something in the choke while revving it, these were not my fault. Nor was the time the power steering belt randomly jumped into the engine while I was driving it.

The Taurus was more reliable, untill it seized and needed a new transmission. That was enough with the car problems for me.

I wanted something new, with decent gas mileage. Something that wasn't a station wagon.

I knew I wanted a 4-door because while I might mostly use it to commute, I like go drive places with friends and I like to take stuff with me. I looked around the roads and decided on what I liked, and researched online to figure out which of these I could afford. I settled on the 2000 Honda Civic EX 4-door. I was hoping for dark purple or green, but couldn't get these with the grey interior - and the beige interior was awful. So, black.

I followed the excellent advice from the Motley Fool - decide on what you want, get the numbers of the fleet managers at all your local dealerships, and fax them a list of what you want and put them in a bidding war against each other to give it to you. It took a while, but there was a fax machine at work and I was patient. I got my car in August 2000, cheap, less than retail, no docking fees. I had managed a loan from my father's credit union. Signing the papers was exciting.

I haven't treated my cars very well. I have tended to driving a lot, long stretches of time, and leaving all sorts of accumulated junk in the car. My cars have been filled with coats and drinks and papers and stray forks and pens and books. I haven't always been rigorous about oil changes (though I recently heard that perhaps the 3k rule should be extended to 10k+ with today's newer cars and environmental needs) and maintenance. I have an awesome repair place (On Track Auto in Burlingame, I highly recommend), but I've ignored body work for years.

Until Tuesday, my car had three big dents, and a broken bumper.

The bumper went first, probably as early as 2001. I was backing out of the small driveway in my apartment building in Daly City, and backed into a post.

The large dent on the driver's side rear quarter panel came as a friend was backing out of my driveway after a party. Neither of us had insurance at the time, and plans were made to fix it. It never happened - we both got distracted and she moved. Just to be clear, this is not something I'm upset about. I didn't ping her on it, and wasn't ever really ready to deal with it.

The dented scrape on the front passenger's side door is from a dumpster. A friend and I were in Berkeley getting coffee near Telegraph, and when we came out we saw that a wheeled dumpster on the street had somehow wheeled itself into my car and half off the curb. We had a hell of a time getting it back on the sidewalk without getting covered in nastiness, and the door has been well-dented ever since.

The dent in the driver's quarter panel was from some asshole hit and run who must have backed into my car when it was parked in Oakland. The door doesn't open all the way anymore, and squeaks.