THEY STOLE THE YOGA MAT, TOO

More lessons in non-attachment.....


To review:

On the night I returned from India, I found my car door unlocked and not closed properly. The battery was dead, the ashtray was missing and on the front seat was a $100 parking ticket from another neighborhood. That night, SportMarty graciously jumped the car's battery, and I started driving it only to find that the brakes made a loud, frightening thudding sound that shook the whole car. Nonetheless I drove to Trader Joe's to pick up some provisions before finally heading home to sleep.

The update:

The next morning, before teaching, I checked the car's brake fluid. It was full. I decided to start the car and drive it around and see if the brakes would improve.

But when I turned the key the car wouldn't start.

The battery was dead. There was just that awful clicking sound.

So I decided to try using the jump box charger that Dreyfus had found for me. I'd nearly forgotten about it.

I opened the car trunk.

To my surprise, the ashtray was inside.

But the jump box was nowhere to be found. They even took the bag of accessories that went with it.

Also missing was my favorite (raspberry-scented) yoga mat, in its hot pink Wai Lana Chinese print bag.

The mind was livid. It really loved that mat. And the bag. Especially the bag.

A call was placed to the car's so-called caretaker.

Words were exchanged.

The caretaker came over immediately and jumped the car.

Then he spent the next 1.5 hours driving around with me, in the hopes that the charge would take and my sense of outrage would subside.

We went through the car wash (it was on him of course), in the hopes that it would clean the gunk off the brakes.

It sort of worked.

We also ate lunch outside, and watched the car idle in the loading zone.

And I learned that there has been a wave of car break-ins in his neighborhood over the past week. Plus my friend Blet's house was broken into.

And I thought, Maybe it's not so bad after all.



* * *



The car started again today.

But I was still worried about the brakes.

So I called the mechanic and explained the problem - and the fact that the car hadn't been driven for two months.

He told me not to bother coming in.

"Drive it for a few days and see if it improves."

He thinks it's a rusty roter.

I like that mechanic.

But the mind couldn't help but wonder, Who in the hell would steal a smelly old yoga mat full of divots and scrapes from a long-ago run-in with an industrial-strength washing machine?

It also thought, Well - I suppose it's a blessing in disguise if they actually end up using the thing.