Remember how last month I was weirdly obsessed with my car's odometer? I kept getting close to seeing awesome numbers like 0987654, missing them by tenths of a mile, and feeling devastated way out of proportion to the actual magnitude of my tribulations.
Well, guess what? I suddenly realized that life is bigger than seven plastic wheels, conquered my need to control pointless minutiae, stopped talking to my car, forgot about palindromes, and haven't looked at the odometer since except to check when I'm next due for an oil change.
Just kidding. That's silly.
What I did instead was realize that even if I did catch sight of a magic number, it would only last a second or two before disappearing forever, and then I would have no purpose in life but to wait for the next one. I needed a way to immortalize these perfect events, so that I could remember forever the day I saw 1234321.
So I started driving everywhere with my camera in my purse, just in case a really cool number came up. It's a good thing I did, because this weekend the digits rolled past 099980, and I switched into Heightened State of Alert mode. After a few more miles, the effort of watching all the dials while simultaneously not crashing into anything became too taxing, and I had to take drastic steps.
It only took fifteen or thirty loops of an empty church parking lot to pull everything together, and just look at the reward for my dedication:
What could be more glorious, you ask? Only THIS:
Now I can start a photo album! One day when I'm old, my descendants will gather eagerly to see pictures of the day Great Grandma's car reached 101010.1 miles, 222.2 of them since the last tank of gas. Then I'll turn the page and show that piece of gum I stepped on that looked just like a question mark, the light through my kitchen window reaching exactly as far as the dishwasher, and the bag of M&Ms with the same number of every color. Finally, I'll regale them with the story of how I learned to rotate my socks to wear all the toes evenly, and they'll head home to bed, exhausted by all the excitement.
Either that or I'll put on slide shows for my 47 cats and ask myself questions in their voices.
When it comes to OCD, you didn't lick it off the wall.....
ReplyDeleteWe love you anyway!
Ma
You rotate your socks?
ReplyDeleteI do not, at this point, rotate my socks for maximum wear. But I have thought about it more than once, and it's probably a slippery slope from there.
ReplyDeleteCLARA! you did it! you have photographic evidence of the numbers, how could anyone NOT believe you?
ReplyDeleteI know! And now I keep my camera with me at all times, so I never have to miss another one! It's more satisfying than is probably reasonable.
ReplyDelete