I have a crappy neck. Push comes to shove, I'll blame it on my mother.
Yesterday I undid some very expensive work that I've had done on my neck. Oh no! Oh yes!
I drive to work (bad me, bad me, I live 3 miles from work... I used a very helpful website that crunched numbers, ostensibly to show me that commuting with others would be better... the only way cheaper than my 20 year old car is my 4 year old bike... that I can't ride until my neck is better). Where was I?
Oh, yeah, I drive to work in my 20 year old car. Yesterday, I puttered along the highway and at the junction where I pull into the left turn lane, my car stalled. Really stalled. Would not start stalled.
I stand here before you and say, this is the first time I've been in this situation. I want you to know that, thanks to countless hours of television and my driving instructor, Tom, I was able to leap into action. I called AAA for a tow, I called my wife for the phone number of the garage, I phoned the garage and told them to expect my car. That took 15 minutes. Then I sat in the suicide lane for another half hour waving at people to go around my useless hunk of metal. A very sweet cop pulled up behind me with his lights flashing (only the second time that's happened, I'm a very boring driver). We chatted and he used his cruiser to push my car out of the middle of the highway over to a bus stop. Well, first I locked my steering wheel and almost banged into a light pole. He was very sweet to me. I'm sure I looked borderline mad, as in insane, and totally freaked. I didn't know how to be pushed, I didn't know I had to have my key in the ignition to make my steering wheel turn. And, with my crapped out neck, cranking that steering wheel (once I got the thing about the key figured out) sent me back into traction (well, metaphorically).
So, what does all this have to do with the question about life using metaphors?
This: At a number of key junctures in my life, vignettes play out and reveal to me the choices I have ahead of me.
Most times they're very clear...
Is this one?
Does life really grab your shirt collar and give it a shake when you're steering off course?
If it does, what did this all mean?
A reluctance to participate in the collective hypnosis of a large group of adults. I can't steer my own course. I must allow authority to assist and direct me.
Nah, that's too weird, but it would make a great short story... I can see it now.
Oh, great, something to add to my NaNo word count.