Muses

            Recently, a friend needed help ferrying presenters to a writer’s conference.  This required driving to the airport at noon on a Friday and transporting three strangers with requisite good-natured banter to Athens. These were folks of some repute in the agenting and publishing world. New York City types. No sweat. I could talk with anyone – right? I’ll appear the ditzy, Suburban-driving mother of three, novice writer from small southern town and play the “I’m just going to the conference to learn something for my midlife hobby” card.  I could do that. It’s almost like I lived it. Then two days before my trip I opened my car door.

            SCREAM!!!  When did the inside of my car turn into a temporary dumping site for Morgan County residents? Someone playing a horrible practical joke must have fashioned a sign at the Brownwood Road dumpster: “Closed for remodeling. All trash to be deposited in the silver Suburban in Jamie Miles’ driveway.” Coffee stains, juice stains, Cheez-Its from yesterday, candy from Halloween and a pile of baking soda under the passenger seat which stood as testament to the horrific rotten, hardboiled egg implosion of July 2007 when a forgotten decorated Easter egg from Caroline Schlabach’s springtime birthday party hermetically sealed in a plastic baggie ruptured. When that little ticking time-bomb finally burst in the summer heat, the resulting stench was like being entombed in a car with approximately 101 chicken-hauling trucks crammed up your nostrils.

  I needed supernatural help. And I received a supernatural answer. Remembering a nice young man who handed me his detailing card while Madison Car Care serviced my car, I flew up there and thankfully spotted Derrick in the yard beautifying a Bronco. Throwing myself on his mercy, I asked if he could help. “A Suburban, no problem,” Derrick answered. I gently suggested he may want to look inside. 

            “Oh.” Shaking his head, he smiled, “I see.” With jaw determinedly fixed he resolved, “You better bring it in early.” 

When my husband drove me to pick it up the next day, an incredulous “WOW” erupted from his lips. It did look knockout spectacular for an older gal, but what about inside? Holding my breath, I peered in an open door. Water turned into wine, Tina Turner’s legs at almost 69 and interior of my car looking just as fine as the day I drove it off the lot; all inexplicable miracles. Derrick performed a wonderfully incomprehensible job on my car.   

So now we have new rules in our household. No food is to cross the threshold of my Suburban, including all edible birthday party favors, especially favors from birthdays falling between March 15 and April 30. Just to be on the safe side, you know.