Car Innards

... yeah, that would be the inner cabling and air conditioning system inside the dash console of my car. Most of it which is showing right now.

Last Friday (very late Friday, perhaps ridiculously early Saturday) some drug-addicted bum broke my car window and recklessly tore out my radio. In the process he kinda fucked up my dashboard, the repair of which the cost is ascending to nearly $800 (and I really hope the insurance company will cover this, but I can't be 100% sure).

In the process I lost my Monday work-day to fix the window (a new glass-sheet plus installation: $160 --- slightly cheaper than i expected) ... but the cost of repairing the dashboard is not-so-slightly more expensive than I would have liked. And much more than the initial estimate by the insurance company.

The whole incident took place while my car was parked in front of Eze's apartment building. No wonder, really, since it is placed smack in the middle between an old-tradition, old-money community (Sagrado Corazón) and an old-timer slum (Villa Palmeras). Some time ago Eze had had a similar incident: he had left his car doors open and someone hopped in and tore the radio out too (dashboard intact, though, and he got saved the trouble of cleaning up window glass shards). Weeks later someone (for the life of me, I don't know why!) tore out the passenger side's rearview mirror (why why why?).

It should have showed me, I should have learned enough to be always very aware to remove the radio's faceplate every time I hopped off the car when I parked there. But that night, my mind was elsewhere. Far removed from all that was logical and sane. I arrived in a very bad mood, and it was not improved by the incidents thereafter. Next morning, however, the mood did not improve, it was totally fucking changed by just glimpsing into my car and see little glass shards hanging like leftover pie crusts from the windowsill. I screamed, I cried ... yeah, I had to let it all out, to the expense of looking like a whiner, crybaby, yeah, call me whatever you want. I even went to the extent of wallowing for a few minutes in the self-pitying inner rant of "why me? why do these things keep happenning to me? first the fire and now this?!"

Yeah, thankfully, I got that out of the way. At least now I can keep a bit more of bounce in my spirit, although beeing able to clearly see my car's dashboard guts spilled onto the passenger seat puts a damper on my mood (yesterday, when they handed the car to me after the carnage, just to get a better and clearer estimate, I started crying again, more out of feeling for the car... I dunno if it's normal, but I love my car... emotionally attached to my vehicle, my horse, my steed... yeah... green love. Funnier still: she has no name).

Anyways, I have to personally hand in the body-shop's real estimate to my insurance person and see if they approve of the whole deal. Otherwise, I might as well kiss my educational fund-savings goodbye (for the most part), since 800 is a bit over half the money I had there.

Well, worse things have happenned to me, so ... "smile like you mean it."

BTW: Eze, PLEASE stop feeling guilty over this, alright? I think that if we round up every lousy bum in Santurce (and there will be a lot of them) we might find the culprit because of the look of dejected surprise in his eyes. Who in his right mind goes to all the trouble of yanking a radio out of a well-secured dashboard just to find it is a factory-installed radio, no frills, and that it is worth junk (or just one night's worth of heroine)? An idiot... a junkie... and a very surprised one at that. Miracle enough it is that he didn't come back to trash the rest of the car out of anger!