One Year of Reality and How It Nearly Killed Me: My Life Behind the Scenes by Deborah Wolff Read Free Book Online Page A

home. I didn’t even think about what that might mean for me. I was too shocked and saddened by the sudden death of a good friend. The impact of this tragic news was interrupted by a more immediate issue.
    My car blew up.
    I was driving to see Laura, on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I had just purchased a new cell phone, had a new job working on
Amazing Race
, and was feeling pretty good about finally making some financial inroads in my life. I was in the fast lane in my imagination, but I was also in the fast lane on the 405 freeway going about 75 miles per hour, listening to some jazz and enjoying the nice weather. Laura lived pretty far away, so I didn’t drive out there often. I only went on weekends because I didn’t want to worry about rushing to get home on a work night.I was in a pretty great mood, when all of a sudden I heard a big bang.
    I thought someone had shot at me, and my first reaction was to duck. Then I pushed on the accelerator, but nothing happened except that smoke was starting to pour out of the hood of my car. It didn’t even occur to me that the car might’ve caught on fire. All I could do was coast and hopefully get off the freeway. But there is a cardinal rule of driving in Southern California. If someone is in distress in the fast lane, don’t let that person over, but pass them as soon as possible so as not to get stuck behind them. It was very difficult to get four lanes over to get to an exit, but I knew the worst thing that could happen was getting stuck in one of the middle lanes. I had this vision of cars swerving around me on both sides, the drivers flipping me the finger.
    I got lucky.
    I got all the way over, but I didn’t have much speed left. Then I got on the exit, and it was all downhill from there. I breathed a sigh of relief. All I could do was push on the wheel of my car, as if that might help it over the edge. I ended up getting safely off the freeway. A special thanks to St. Michael for that one. Wanting to keep my glass half-full, there weretwo positive things I could come up with about my car blowing up. One: It was time for another car, as this one was clearly dying. Two: I might just be able to afford said car.
    I called Laura after my car blew up and told her that it looked like I wasn’t going to be coming over. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. In her usual generous spirit, she suggested that I borrow her Ford Explorer while her husband recuperated from his recent brain tumor surgery. He wasn’t supposed to drive for six months or so to make sure he didn’t have any seizures. I don’t know where I’d be without the help of my friends.
    Laura’s Explorer had problems.
    I had a bit of bad car karma. Thankfully my mechanic bought my clunker of a car for a thousand dollars. It probably wasn’t worth that much, but he wanted to fix it up for himself. That was fine; I just wanted to get rid of it. After all, Laura had offered me the use of the Explorer for a couple of months. Well, every time I would use that car, which was mostly for driving to dealerships to look for a new car, it would not start. I always had to call a tow service to get it started. No one could figure out what the problem was because it seemed as though every time a towperson would come, they could start the car without a problem. I also had to replace the tires because around that time there was a recall of Firestone tires. The tires were looking a little ragged and starting to peel, so I got that fixed right away. But the car not starting was a problem. Finally, after a few weeks, a mechanic figured out that the issue was a defective lock on the starter. So, with my friend’s permission, I had the thing pulled out of the car. At around that time, her husband was cleared for driving, and I returned the Explorer. I didn’t have a car yet, but I felt like I was close.
    I was determined to take the time to find the right car; do the research, bone up on how to deal with salesmen, that sort of