"Smother People To Death Inside Of Holler Logs"

I did something very adult-like tonight: I signed up for my own car insurance.

I've been on my parents' car insurance since I was able to drive. It was one of the deals they made with me when I started driving: keep the grades up, we'll keep your car going. As I went on to college, it was a way of guaranteeing that I wouldn't have to get a full-time job just to make ends meet. As I've grown older, I've just stayed on their insurance because...well, I was in grad school, I wasn't able to work full time still, and it just made more sense.

Now, though...now, I'm on my own. Completely. I have cut all the purse strings between myself and the folks. Granted, it's not like I'm completely financially independent even now. If it weren't for Wendy and Tim, I'd be living in a cardboard box down by the school (or in the school, even). Lord knows I can't afford to live here by myself (especially with the crappy pay that comes with my job), but I'm still more independent than I ever have been before.

This might seem sad when you consider that I'm twenty-five and just now breaking away from mommy and daddy. Well, if you think that, screw you. They were just being helpful, and God knows I wasn't in any profession that was going to net me big bucks. I've been a tutor and a teacher, neither of which are high up there on the great ladder of decent-paying jobs.

Now, if I could get a job in the public schools, that'd maybe be a different matter...

Anyway, it was kind of interesting to think about, really. I mean, here I was, signing up for car insurance. Something of a rite of passage for me, I guess. I'm sure there are more important rites of passage, but this one was pretty big for me. Cars are an important symbol, I think. Of course, that might be because I've listened to so much popular music and seen so many movies (look at American Grafitti, for instance). The car is a symbol of freedom, of power, of responsibility and control. A car is a ton or two of steel and fiberglass and internal combustion power that grants you the ability to go where you want, when you want, in a way that a bicycle never could. I've felt that way about cars for a long time. When I had a car accident my junior year of college, no one could understand why it upset me so much. I'd messed up my car, so what? It was being fixed, no worries. Except it was a worry to me. I had to rely on someone else to go anywhere or do anything. I didn't have that freedom or control of my own destiny. It was taken from me by a split second's slip of concentration, and that disturbed me greatly. Not having my car for those couple of months felt very restrictive.

Now, Ev might remind me that having a car is a luxury, not a right. And it's true: having a car is definitely a privilege, and not one that everyone is lucky enough to have. I know this. But we have a tendency to make the miraculous seem mundane, to make gifts seem like birthrights. You get used to having a certain amount of mobility and freedom...and it's taken from you. Like having your legs knocked out from under you, or having the entire lower half of your body go numb and limp.

Anyway, I have insurance now. My own insurance. It's a fairly powerful feeling, really. I just wish it didn't cost so damn much.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Billy Bragg & Wilco, "Meanest Man"