Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Autonomous and Proud The important

Autonomous and Proud
The important thing is that the power is back on at home, the sink and dishwasher are back on line, and I finally have a car.  Or, more accurately, I have access to my own vehicle, my autonomy has been restored. 

It’s been since October that we’ve had the new Soob (Forester by Subaru) and it’s still a pleasure to hop in and drive off.  Except I never could just hop and drive - first I had to find and snag.  That is, I had to get the clicker off the wife’s keychain if I didn’t want the alarm to go off (and it’s one of those particularly annoying multiphasic-type alarms with klaxons and sirens and raspberry sounds all switching back and forth...). 

It took a month before I realized I could do something about it, and another several weeks to find the dealer for my alarm out in lower Scabrous County GA, and then I ordered it… two weeks later I called to find out where it was, and no record of my order was on file.  I was patient; something about the relaxed drawl on their service line kept me cool I guess, and they cheerfully re-ordered for me.  Two more weeks, and I call again: no record of my prior calls on file.  The guy remembered me, but seemed to have forgotten to process my order.  With relaxed drawls, they set it all up for me while I was on the phone and the item arrived in three days. 

I couldn’t make it work.  I reprogrammed six different times (or thought I had) but only succeeded in disabling Kel’s remote, not hooking up my own.  I was in a dank doghouse and increasingly irritated by the evanascent nature of my personal freedom.  With the alarm, I was a man on the go, a cosmopolitan stud.  Without it, I remained a tremulous shadow of a man.  This morning I called back east at 10 am their time and Buford or Bodine or somebody with a somewhat archaic “B” name and a relaxed drawl talked me through the process.  And now - now -

now I can enter and park my own car at will.  I can leave the house when I want; I can make my own way in the world.  It’s been a long long time since I’ve liked the car I drove, and now finally I can like it and drive it without outside assistance.  It’s hard to feel self-reliant when I had to wait for my wife before I could use the car.  Now I need permission from no man - or woman—I can just tear loose and cause havoc wherever and whenever I desire. 

Maybe me having this clicker isn’t such a good idea after all.