Thou Shalt Not Post in Anger

A pittoresque cu-de-sac in southern San Francisco. A tree lined street with a small but verdant park at the end, lined with jaunty, brightly colored houses; the end of a voyage of nigh epic proportions. The reward; a new car which I covet, a convertible Tracker; in my admittedly somewhat nonstandard mindset the closest thing to sex that four wheels and half a ton of metal can hope to represent. Bryan (name not changed to protect anybody), after coming up with excuse after excuse for the better part of a week, has finally graced me with an audience. The problem is that he’s not there, nor is the object of my affection. Three hours my trip has lasted, and then some, through dangers both vivid and imaginary, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is nowhere in sight. Time to grab the phone.

Bryan, it turns out, is a singer. And not just any singer, he is a singer in the illustrious San Francisco Opera, and has recently embarked on a new series of performances which consume entirely all of the time he could otherwise have utilized quite productively selling the car he was only last week so eager to offload. It is revealed to me that the poor unfortunate’s great uncle, twice removed no doubt, has also passed away last night, although it is unclear to me how this information pertains to my attempts to acquire a vehicle from the wayward opera singer. Finally, the cat comes out of the bag. Bryan has sold the car, the object of my desire, to a dealer, just last night. It bears noting at this point that there was only recently no possible way Bryan could be available to facilitate such a transaction on that day, bearing in mind his busy schedule of perfecting his tremolo and burying his sadly departed distant relatives. Apologies are profuse, but they are the gourmet of the car buying process. Perforated crackers of communication, the starch and salt of commerce; they have no meaning. Mere punctuation in the sentence of my misery.

A dilapidated dead end road in San Francisco’s armpit. An overgrown alley that terminates in a weed infested field of rocks and rusty playground equipment encroached by garishly colored wooden houses, hardly more than shanties. My dream of motorized mobility shattered, I wander aimlessly for a while, hoping that around the next corner I shall find a vehicle that meets my needs, adorned with that magical ‘for sale’ sign. I feel like a hideously disfigured Johnnie in Amsterdam’s red light district, looking for the whore who not only enchants, but will also stoop so low as to accept my business. Eventually, my needs unfulfilled, I sulk off to the train, a broken and unsatisfied man. My only hope of redemption is the slim chance that one day I shall encounter, perhaps wandering the streets, perhaps in a house of arts, an opera singer named Bryan, sadly bereft of distant family and distinctly not driving a convertible Geo Tracker, and that I may have occasion to kick him firmly in the nuts.