"Karma" is a New Age phrase that has come to mean a kind
of "deserved fate," that we have somehow gotten ourselves
into and can't escape. We see it all the time in politics:
Whenever some government official rails against sexual
immorality, he (it's usually a man) seems to always get
caught a few weeks later with his pants down. I also see it in
automobile mishaps: the many ways in which people's cars
can break down seem to reflect their personalities.
The first time I noticed this was with a relative whose cars
kept exploding. This happened to him so often that he never
seemed to realize that this wasn't a common occurrence in
EVERYONE'S life. He would call us up every few weeks in a
dejected voice and say, "My car exploded again."
My favorite incidence of this was when he was dating the
daughter of a leading automobile dealer in a major city. Like
most of these people, this father had a whole string of
dealerships, representing every major make of automobile, so
that if you were going to buy a car in that city, you were
definitely going to buy it from him.
He had this little red sports car that he wanted to sell
because the pop-up headlights sometimes did not pop up in a
timely fashion when he turned them on, causing them to
overheat and smoke. The car dealer kindly offered to let him
park the car on his used car lot and (you guessed it), one
weekend evening, when the lot of was closed, the car
exploded and burned down the man's entire Ford dealership
(it also ended our friend's relationship with the daughter).
I think this was definitely a case of "Carma," because our
friend is a rather repressed individual who has often been
unlucky in love (although usually not so dramatically). My
conclusion is that all his buttoned-up emotions come out
through his cars, which then explode with a ferocity which he
never exhibits in his personal life.
We once had a car that kept exploding, and this was a time
when we had just arrived in Los Angeles and were involved in
trying to sell one of Whitley's books to the movies. We hadn't
yet realized how perfidious movies studios are, so we were
appalled at the way we were being treated (while we would
now consider this sort of thing to simply be business as
usual). The radiator blew up twice when we were on our way
downtown to see the same play (which I interpreted to mean
that the play was not very good and the car was being a kind
of "drama critic"). One time the radiator blew up RIGHT IN
FRONT of the automobile dealership, while our manager was
sitting in the passenger seat, discussing the film negotiations
with him. It was almost as if the car was trying to do Whitley
a favor, so he wouldn't have pay extra to have the car towed.
I remember an older woman we knew who once called us up
and said, "My car won't back up." Realizing that she must
have a broken transmission, Whitley asked, "How long has
this been going on?" Her reply, "Oh, about 6 months."
We were fascinated by imagining how someone could GET
AROUND and, especially, PARK without being able to back up:
It would take an amazing amount of strategy. This was
someone who had needed to back up and start over a long
time ago, but had instead cruised stubbornly ahead, never
looking back or questioning her decisions, for her entire life.
A good friend has a horror of buying new cars, considering
them a waste of money, and although he is comfortably off,
he prefers old jalopies and drives his cars into the ground. He
is a person who is a bit haunted by his past, especially by a
father who had unfulfilled political ambitions that this man felt
HE needed to fulfill, in a kind of surrogate gift to his dad. But
a few years ago, he jettisoned all these ideas and took up
teaching, which he enjoys very much. He also bought a brand
new car.
We once owned a car with a faulty parking brake that would
let go without warning, sending the car drifting away down
the road with no one in it. At the time, we were living in a
place where we didn't belong, mainly because we couldn't
find any other place to live at the time. Our car obviously
wanted to leave and eventually we did too (although we
traded it in for another automobile before we did).
After all this, I've come to the point where I consider the car
to be a kind of oracle, pointing out things we need to know
about ourselves, if we will only listen. You may have
outgrown having Mom and Dad tell you what to do and may
not utilize the services of a priest, preacher or psychologist,
but there is still your car: sitting patiently in the driveway,
waiting for you to finally pay attention to what it has
to "say."
Related Entries:
24-Feb-2010: Are the Grays Autistic?
14-Feb-2010: Valentine's Day: A Realization
09-Feb-2010: Gays in the Military (cont.)
26-Jan-2010: Left & Right
19-Jan-2010: Tea Dancing
06-Jan-2010: Epiphany
30-Dec-2009: Homeless
10-Nov-2009: On NOT Going to a Movie about UFOs
20-Oct-2009: The Laughing Buddha
11-Oct-2009: The Red Coat
