Metamorphosism

CHAKACHAKACHAKA

Woke up in a good mood. Not exactly woke up. Got up a few times during the early morning, set alarm ahead half an hour each time, finally got up around 5.30, 6.00, made coffee, ate some cereal, had a crap/read the paper, showered, shaved. Had a great BM this morning, maybe it was that. By the time I went upstairs to get dressed and wake Gamma, I guess I was in a good mood, because I was singing a song about underwear that I was making up on the spot, out of one of those off-Broadway musicals that run in our heads, belting it out, much to Gamma's amazement. Then I rushed her to finally get up so I could take her downstairs and give her breakfast, a slice of toast with Nutella if she hurries, get up finally, get up, get up, I said. And each time she tried to get up I let her fall back down, or dropped her onto the bed, or flipped her over. Get up! Get up! Quit messing around, I'm serious. Quit fooling around! Do you want breakfast or not? Get up finally! So she was laughing by the time I finally really picked her up and carried her downstairs, fooling around on the stairs, pretending to drop her etc. Her grandmother was surprised to see her in such a good mood that early in the morning. She always just gives us dirty looks, she said.
Put my CD of Vivaldi concertos into the player on my drive, hit some ice at a stop sign, felt the brakes doing that CHAKACHAKACHAKA thing new brakes do nowadays when your car is on the verge of sliding out of control but managed to stop in time, took it easy on the rest of my commute.
Vivaldi cello concertos make me feel like I'm in one of those car commercials, it's totally car commercial music. Shiny new car swooping through some swooping landscape with autumn foliage on the hills or purple mountains majesty or waving fields of grain or a coastal landscape in the background, filmed from a swooping helicopter. And some resonant voice saying something poetic in the background like, of course you want one of our cars, you're a type one car buyer, you want a new car that won't start nickling and diming you to death right away and will be almost happy when something rare goes wrong and it's still under warranty, something arcane and electrical, and won't think to ask for a loaner car while we hold it in the shop waiting for an organ donor because this is really rare, what went wrong, rare and electrical, maybe your wife is right when she says you have an electrical field that causes electrical problems with your cars, and new cars nowadays, they don't even have distributors? They have some other shit? I could explain it to you but you'd forget it immediately because, you know? So you just want this car, believe me. Says the voice. And Vivaldi makes everything good and you can just smell it.
And I drive to work, alone because Beta stayed at a girlfriend's place in Vienna last night, I'm taking her word for it, and I drive along and think or don't think. Don't hit a traffic jam until the very end, some road maintenance truck in the left lane and some Mercedes delivery van with Polish plates in the emergency lane on the right, and a police car behind him with his blue lights flashing. Various things go through my head, nothing useful like I imagine other people think when they drive, like how to be a more efficient employee, or how to actualize their true potential, or realize their deepest desires, or land that important account, or finally get that task done, or things like, "Moldova is the weak link: all I have to do is get the asbestos miners to strike, and then unrest will spread throughout the region, and the nuclear warheads will be mine mwahahaha," actually, I did think that, come to think of it, but I mean, more things like those "100 things about me" lists, bits of telling dialogues, bits of information. Things like,

1. "You just have bad luck with cars," my wife says.
   
2. "You can take your cellphone into the consulate with you," says the guard, "you just have to turn it off first." "Actually, I'd rather leave it with you," I reply, "a friend gave it to me and I don't know the PIN code to turn it back on." It's like a damned tamagochi, I'm always making sure that it's properly charged, otherwise I'll have to look for the paper she gave me with all the account information on it, including the PIN, to turn it back on. And who knows where I put that.
   
3. The flashing blue lights remind me that I always notice them when they're behind me, and make room for emergency vehicles and cops and get worked up over people who don't, but rarely notice them in time when they're in front of me, as if I take a martial arts approach to driving, always ahead of myself, always visualizing the punch through the opponent, or my car already through the intersection before I even enter it. In recent months, one ambulance and one firetruck have had to wait for me to pass through an intersection. So far I haven't been one of those unlucky flakes who actually crash into one. I always swear next time I'll notice them in time and let them through, but then I don't.