Consider for a moment the fabulous amount of freedom before you, days filled with couch surfing and minor carpel tunnel from your semi permanent grip on the T.V. remote. Clutter is no object and if you want to leave the bathroom door open then it’s nobody’s gob smackin business. You answer to no man (or woman) and the world is your extra deep fried oyster.

Now place in that domestic utopia, another human being.

We’ll call them SugarDumplinBabySweetyMuffinCake. Too long? Well how about the dear person who will ruin anything fun you could ever think of in the existence of the universe ever.

Now I don’t mean to imply that all anarchy will ensue upon even associating with hotty mc hotpants; it takes a little more than dinner and a broken bedspring to ruin your life.

But for the love of Bob Saget don’t date them!

You see, what you don’t realize is that dating, as amped up and overrated as it is, is really just like being in a used car dealership. Everything just looks so shiny, and who can beat the prices? Sure they’ve got some miles on them, but really, who doesn’t?

They’ve got their best right out front, all wrapped up and on display. Just like that nice number at the bar, in the well fitted top and jeans, their front is flawless. Not only that, they’ve got a sense of humor, and don’t live in their mother’s basement. What could possibly be wrong with the suddenly all consuming object of your desire?

Check the mileage.

I’d bet you bed knobs to broomsticks it’s over 200,000. Everyone’s got a history, and Sweetheart’s is a mile or two (hundred thousand) long. That new car feeling will last about as long as it takes you to realize that the previous owner(s) either didn’t give a flying fanny, or had an aesthetic preference for dented up rolling death traps.

Did I mention the roof leaks?

And that’s just the beginning, let’s say, during a moment of clinical amnesia, you forget everything that’s good in life and actually date them. The feeling of trust and intimacy with a well established partner is worth it right?

Wrong.

Thinking you’ve scoped them out and can absorb the costs of repair, with maybe a little upkeep now and then, you venture out into the land of happy Coupledom. The first few weeks of travel are brilliant; they have filled the void in your achy breaky heart, and you have never been happier in your life, when suddenly you strike a bump in the road.

And the baggage comes flying out of the trunk like an angry Chinese man.

Not only that, but once it’s out of its tightly packed prison of seeming normalcy, you can’t put it back in. So you strap it to the roof, practically doubling the drag. For those of you pining away about how much deeper your connection is now that everything’s on the table, I insist you share with the class whatever you’re smoking.

Newly discovered trauma tightly secured, you continue on your journey with renewed vigor. The worst of it’s over now right? Will not you’re deeper understanding of them as a person aid you in the future? I say hogwash; you’ve only scraped the surface of this paintjob, and believe me there’s more than enough rust to uncover yet.

Like the fact that, even knowing they’re a deranged would by psychopath just waiting for the right moment to snap on you in the kitchen with your grandmother’s steak knife, you actually have to spend time with them. And not only when you want to, this ride has more than just personality, it has ‘feelings’. That being a twisted set of double standards that you should already have memorized verbatim, and failing to do so, leaves you soon to be picking pieces of dash out of your teeth when the airbags don’t deploy.

Chop shop, or sabotage?

It doesn’t matter which, because Sugarbunny’s pissed at you. And not the normal, sane person, it’ll blow over in a few days pissed. You’re now the proud owner of an all you can chew out buffet, and they’re absolutely famished. Did I mention they can eat for weeks? That’s right this car’s not going anywhere until you ‘fix it’. What exactly ‘it’ entails is never exactly clear, and there’s little hope of getting a clear answer out of them anyway, so what’s a sap to do?

You have two options. A: pretend nothing at all happened which will most likely result in sudden loss of wheels or B: jack that thing up and fine tune your BS skills to an almost Oscar worthy level. Providing they don’t crush you for trying, you may then have the privilege of a ‘safe period’, that scant bit of time they’re unlikely to lose traction and plow you into oncoming traffic. Your first fight in tow, you clamber back in and continue onward. Surely that’s the worst of it.

Oh you poor simpleton.

You’re practically driving on eggshells, every crack, bump and creak leaves you jolting at the wheel, for all you know, breathing might set them off. It’s in that state of hyperawareness that you first begin to really take note of your surroundings. The once somewhat questionable interior is now downright unsanitary, and you don’t even want to think about the dented up bumper. Maybe you finally catch site of the bullet holes in the side door, or the cigarette burns on the ceiling, either way it’s far too late, as you were breathing too loudly and the A/C just kicked off.

Plunging you into the fifth level of hell.

The only rug burn you’ll be getting will be from the floor mats spontaneously combusting as the temperature rises to ungodly levels. It’s generally about this time that a sane and well rounded individual realizes that it’s time to cut their losses, and sell the beloved death trap to a chop shop, or run madly into the night, whichever feels right.

Being that the aforementioned individual would’ve had the brain cells to decipher that the purchase of said vehicle would end in doom in the first place proves that you are no such thing.

You’ll see this to the battery acid filled end.

And to you I say god speed, as you’ll be needing it when they try to run your ass over.

Goodnight and good luck,

-Scarves

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