My My My My Tacoma

Look in my eyes, Tacoma

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I’ve always wanted a Toyota Tacoma. Naturally I’d prefer to live near a train, blah blah, etc. obviously. But in the world we live in, where we must get places and there is no way to get to those places without driving, I would like to do so in a Toyota Tacoma, a 5-speed. They’re fun to drive, they are high off the ground, they’re just cool.

My friend E. has one of these vehicles. And because I am and have for the last three months had the pleasure of sharing one car with another person in a place where you really need your own car (we can’t find one and there is no car on the horizon) I have been borrowing E.’s Tacoma now and then. I think I have called E. “Karen” in past articles, for obvious reasons I have decided to stop using this pseudonym for her. It’s very nice of E. to loan me her car from time to time though I will say my boyfriend and I spend a fair amount of time taking care of her son so she kind of owes us, in fact, we could probably borrow her car every single day for the rest of our lives and this might one day equal in value the amount of free childcare we have given her, just kidding/not really. She brought that up, by the way, not me. I will allow that E. is a truly great person, and as much as I dislike babysitting if we didn’t babysit for her she would probably go insane and I am happy to contribute to this not happening even if babysitting itself doesn’t make me happy.

So last week I drove E’s Tacoma to my workout place. It’s not really a gym. It has classes, spinning, hot Pilates, yoga, circuit training. My workout place kicks fucking ass. The people that work there are so incredibly nice, they know all our names, they notice if you’ve been sick or gone for a while, or if you come in for an extra session or are looking particularly good that day, they freeze your membership when you go out of town even it’s not for very long.  I’m aware that I’m paying for this and it’s not just like wow they really love me because I am so extra cool but still if everyone I knew treated me with as much kind attention as the people at my workout place I’d be a lot happier. Maybe I should just think about treating everyone I know that nicely for starters, be the change you want to see and all that. At any rate, the place has a pleasing vibe and when I rolled in the other day after finding a good spot for the Tacoma on the street (the parking lot was full, but there’s ample street parking) it was to a chorus of friendly hellos and I was adjusting my spin bike practically whistling to myself with a sense of coddled well-being when a pretty teenager in workout gear appeared in the doorway of the spinning studio and said, “Hey does anyone drive a black Toyota Tacoma?”

Hmmmm, I guess I must have left my lights on, I thought, or maybe I…well, honestly that kind of exhausted the reasons she might be asking this for non-terrifying reasons. Still, I shouted “It’s mine!” because I was still just so excited to be driving a Toyota Tacoma.

Then the girl said “Ok well your Toyota Tacoma is rolling down the hill.”

I rarely miss an opportunity to freak out. But for some reason this was so bad I immediately felt calm. The worst has happened, big surprise, I thought. I mean, not THE WORST but as far as non-horrible, non-violent bad (assuming the car had not hit a person or animal, and if it had I think girl would have brought this up) this was certainly bad. I will have to pay E. a lot of money because her insurance premiums will go up, I will have to drive her and her son everywhere for weeks or months until they can get a new car which is currently a pretty tough thing to do, also, how weird is it that E. and I once accidentally in a botched roll start attempt rolled my Toyota Yaris (RIP, though not until years later) down a huge hill into a church parking lot, resulting in, essentially,  the entire driver’s side of the car having to be replaced. Also, I thought, I will have to deal with someone else’s car being fucked up. I thought all this as I followed the girl past the reception desk and water station and cubby holes for shoes and bags and across the parking lot and down the long steep driveway to the long steep hill that my friend’s $30,000 truck (which was now selling for I believe about 42k, used?) was rolling (or had rolled?) down.

I don’t remember if the girl gave me any details while we made this short journey. I do remember, as I rounded the corner from the driveway to the road, bracing myself for the horror. Imagine my relief when I saw E’s Toyota Tacoma sitting right where I had left it, more or less, meaning that it had rolled down the hill, yes, but just a few feet, into the curb. Parked next to the Tacoma, presumably because staying in front of it was not necessarily safe, was a fairly new Subaru that I recalled having parked behind when I arrived. Standing next to it was a blonde woman holding car keys, presumably the girl’s mom.

This woman/mom was standing in between the Subaru and the Tacoma, she didn’t look terribly unhappy but she didn’t look that psyched. I just started saying stuff, like, “Ok, first of all, I’m so sorry, second of all, I’m clearly an idiot, sorry, I will pay for whatever, and I’m not saying I’m not an idiot but this isn’t my car and I’m not used to driving it, but that’s not an excuse.” Things of this nature.

The woman/mom said as she and her teenaged daughter had gotten into their car to leave the woman/mom had remarked that this person (me/the Tacoma driver) had parked in such a way that their truck was literally touching her car, and, although she might not have said this exactly, she was like, what the hell, who does this? And then when she’d moved forward, the truck had also moved forward, lightly, though not quite feebly, striking her bumper. She showed me a small mark on her bumper which I said I’d pay for.  I gave her my number. She said she didn’t know if she was going to bother to fix it and once again I assured her that if she did though of course I was hoping she wouldn’t, I would pay for it. She said she knew E too, because they play soccer together, and then I realized I had met her like eight times. “I know you, you are a writer,” she muttered “New Yorker,” and I felt as if she might be wondering how someone who gets paid to write things for a well-known magazine is also too stupid to use a parking brake, and I actually said, “Uh, I write for the website,” because I hoped this might help it all make more sense.

I opened the truck. It was still in gear. What the fuck. My Yaris didn’t go sliding all over Tarnation when I just parked it in gear. I gave the emergency break a good pull. I took my leave with more apologies.

I only missed eight minutes of class. The instructor turned down the music and said, “What happened?” and I explained the car had rolled like three feet down the hill, it had not rolled down the entire hill and wrapped itself around a tree or a car or a person. I think the people in the class were happy for me that the situation was not as dire as it had seemed but also (as I would have been as an observer) guiltily disappointed at the anti-climax. She turned the music back up and we had our “ride.”

After class several people marveled at how calm I had seemed, especially since the Tacoma wasn’t mine. I didn’t know what to say. It seemed complicated to explain how the friend I borrowed it from and I had once tried to jump start my car and actually rolled it down a hill, and that in addition to being very upset I was kind of like, well, here we are again, I guess this friendship has roll vehicles down a hill energy, it’s just our destiny.