reasons to keep driving

Last week, on my way to meet a friend at the movies, my brakes suddenly stopped working. By suddenly, I mean that when I left my apartment they worked fine but by the time I got to the movie theater, the car wouldn’t stop. Granted, the little brake light had gone off a week prior, so the suddenness was more the actual inability to stop rather than a complete lack of any clues. But so many little lights go off on my car’s dashboard anymore that I need to be selective in which ones I take to mean ‘emergency’. For the past six months, the little ‘door open’ light has been on when I know for a fact that all the doors are securely shut. Thus, when the ‘brake’ light came on, the very fact that the brakes worked seemed to indicate that this was simply another little quirk which my car had developed.

Luckily, there happened to be a Pep Boys near the theater. And though my car wouldn’t stop, by pressing the brake pedal down to the floor, I was able to coax it into slowing down. And for the mere price of two vital organs, those perky little Pep Boys resuscitated my brakes which, as it turned out, stopped working because all of the brake fluid had drained from its veins. Which, as it further turned out, happened because the brake lines were badly rusted through. Which, as it even furthered turned out, was a result of my car’s underside having ‘severe rust problems’. Sadly, my car is on its deathbed.

I was able to finagle a ride home out of my friend, though the following day I had an interview about an hour out of town. This friend is an ‘I’ll drive you home’ friend but not an ‘I’ll drive you to an interview an hour away and then back again’ friend, thus I was forced to enlist the help of my parents in the lending of a vehicle.

The interview was at an AM radio station. I didn’t remember applying there nor did I have any recollection of what position I might have been interested in, but the very fact that they called was reason enough to go. Upon arriving, I realized what position I must have unwittingly sent a resume in for, because taped to the window was a sign that read ‘MAKE MONEY! JOIN OUR SALES TEAM!’

I’m not a professional human resources person, but I feel quite certain that ‘decent’ jobs…job openings which promise to pay over the minimum wage…aren’t taped to windows. And I bet that Michael Eisner wasn’t wandering through Disneyland when he saw a sign taped up on Epcot center that read ‘MAKE MONEY! JOIN OUR CEO TEAM!’

So with hope quickly fading, I trudged inside and met Sheila, a miserable woman who also turned out to be the lady interviewing me.

Needless to say, the interview was a train wreck. Luckily, it only lasted about two minutes. The highpoint being when Sheila glared at me and, in the tone of teacher reprimanding a naughty student, she asked, “and why, exactly, did you fail to bring any references for me when I specifically told you to?”

The truth was that I was not going to subject any of my references to the likes of Sheila. But instead of telling her this, I gave a brief summary of my loss of brakes, evening spent at a place not my own, and how I was therefore unable to bring the printed sheet containing the names and numbers of people who could assure her that yes, I could sell stuff and should be hired.

And after explaining all of this, briefly I might add, Sheila coldly looked at me and said, “I really didn’t want to hear the whole story.”

As I was leaving a few seconds later, gritting my teeth as I walked out the door, I couldn’t help but think that it would have been nice to have driven my brakeless car to the interview. Because without brakes, I wouldn’t have been able to stop, thus giving me the perfect excuse to keep driving…right past the radio station with Sheila waiting inside.