I'm Neither Boring nor Poor, But I'm an Idiot

Another essay about being a sham

I’m at this store in Ojai proper during my break at work. I forgot to bring a hair thing and want a new candle. It’s balls cold for a spell which is to say that it’s in the mid-high 40s which means I can wear this faux fur jacket from my clothing rental box that makes me feel luxurious. I stick my nose in every candle on the shelf, checking the bottoms for prices. Most are around the $35 to $45 range which is kind of insane if you think about it, but also that’s just one hour of waiting tables. The candles burn for like 48 to 60 hours give or take, so the return on investment is okay. I pick up the only one that doesn’t have a price on the bottom but smells amazing: ‘Big Sur After Rain.”

I bring it up to the sales girl and scavenge through the basket of hair clips on the counter. I pick a green and purple checked acrylic one, the kind with the swinging latch. It’s fun and funky like me.

The sales lady introduces herself as Charlie and we commiserate over how especially annoying the holiday visitors have been this year. I maintain my casual demeaner when she rings up the candle and has to double-check that this eight ounce candle is indeed listed for $65 in the system. I just stand there like a shrug and pretend my house is full of $65 candles. I don’t see what the problem is.

I have this metal allergy which means I can’t wear cheap jewelry which means I’m always making the joke that I was supposed to be born as a princess or duchess or at least a Kardashian. Joke’s on me though because my royal family has never shown up at my door to sweep me away to the mansion that will be my inheritance. I’m just stuck with these dopes who gave me hearty calves and a strong “work ethic.”

Grandma used to ask, “You know what they say about people who marry for money?” It was her set-up so she could deliver a zinger. “They earn every penny of it.”

I think I should seek out partners who are better at money than me, not because I want their money but so that I might be inspired to be less embarrassing with the mishandling of my own. I think I should shirk Grandma’s advice and get a third job as the wife of a millionaire. Maybe I just spend too much time in a place that is too friendly with the idea of manifestation and also rife with people wealthy enough to give the illusion that it’s all within reach.

This is not a pity post. I turned down a promotion at work that promised more money because I couldn’t stand the idea that it would take more of my time. I think about time as the years trot on. I wake up thinking about this thing I heard once—something about the present devouring the future and turning it into the past. My mind makes it a vulgar act of digestion. The present is gobbling everything up and shitting out the past which means the past is just a bunch of waste. When I write about the past, I play with the future’s shit and try to turn it into art.

I have this experience of feeling deeply sorry for myself in line at Oil Changers. I like that name for a business. It makes me want to open a restaurant and call it Food Cookers.

Okay. Here’s the big huge thing about getting any service done to my car, and I’m glad my car can’t read because I would never want her to know what I’m writing about her. I am so embarrassed by her. This is southern California. Your car is everything, but mine has been through so much and driven so many miles that you can see it all over her body. I feel it when I’m sitting in my car, that I’m being laid out and exposed. 285,000 miles, two accidents, two thefts, five break-ins, one major roof leak, one major oil leak, rust as far as the eye can see. I had the hood replaced after I rear-ended someone, but I never had it painted because that’s thousands of dollars and I only had liability insurance. I tried painting it with spray paint after it had already been rusted for a year, so now it’s a few different colors of rust and silver. A year ago, someone broke in by prying the driver’s side door open from the top, so now I don’t have a seal on my side and I can hear the wind whipping through the crack as I travel down the freeway.

It was once stolen for two weeks and recovered with a smashed windshield and a broken sunglasses holder—a feature of the interior that I loved. Another time it was stolen and then gently crashed into a fence and recovered in a few hours with minimal damage three blocks from where I had parked it. I have a theory that whoever stole it that time didn’t know how to drive a stick. I did find a used syringe and brown substances in it after that theft, so I know she must have been terrified at who was handling her. My poor little Honda.

So I’m in line at Oil Changers behind the wheel, dressed to the nines as always, but at the place where the mechanics can see that I am a complete fucking sham. There’s an adorable car in front of me, white Ford Mustang GT from the 80s. The license plate frame says, “Another shitty day in ___.” It looks like the word paradise has been censored, but they decided to keep the word shitty. I’m staring at the frame trying to figure it out when I notice that the mechanics are talking to the driver about her car.

The big one who never smiles and always seems to be scolding me tells her, “I haven’t seen one of these in twenty years. That was the car to have when I was in high school.” He is having the best time I’ve ever seen him have. He’s usually gruff, and I know he smokes cigarettes. I used to blame his shitty attitude on nicotine withdrawals, but now I’m beginning to suspect that he just hates my car.

One of the guys even comes up the stairs from the oil-change basement to check out the little white car ahead of me.

“People keep knocking on my parent’s door,” says the disembodied voice of the young girl in the driver’s seat, “asking if it’s for sale. They say, ‘Over my daughter’s dead body.’”

They are all laughing and having a great time and bonding over this girl’s great car. I’m idling in the background with my library book on my lap, probably with lipstick all over my teeth. Maybe I should move back in with my parents and get a new car, so I don’t feel so humiliated at Oil Changers.

When it’s my turn to pull up to the bay, the big grumpy man looks under my hood with a grave look and starts showing me dirty filters I’m not financially in a position to have switched out right now. He has a lot to write about on his clipboard and gives me a list of things I need to get fixed at the end of the oil change. I have to use my Amex to pay for it because I keep doing stupid shit to decimate my checking account.

I write about this entire experience while burning my ‘Big Sur after the Rain’ candle. I threw away the box, so I don’t know the exact burn time. I look up the maker online and it’s from New York, which makes the candle kind of a sham. It’s never even been to Big Sur, but me and my shitty car have—several times. The scent is good though—almost worth the cost. It can’t be more than a couple bucks an hour and it does smell fucking phenomenal like something nostalgic, like eucalyptus while I’m riding a bike, like the wind raking it’s fingers through my hair, like childhood, like freedom, like the present eating up the future.