Highly Textured

Those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook (all three of you) wanted to know what happened to my poor Lola. So here's the story:

Tuesday is my off day, and as I'm wont to do, I spent the morning snoring loudly on the couch. Until my roomate came in and woke me up.

"Uh, Veronica," she said tentatively. "I found your mirror on the ground."

I stirred a bit and then looked up.

Kelly was holding the casing to my driver's side mirror in her hand.

My first words of the morning: "Why the hell is my mirror inside the house?"

Kelly explained. "I dunno. I went outside and saw it on the ground. Someone must've knocked it off in the middle of the night."

"Is there a note?" Common etiquette tells me someone would have left a note.

Kelly went back outside to check, and then returned. "No. No note."

...

What the HELL man?! Seriously? Who knocks off a person's mirror and keeps it moving? And how do you even do it when my car is parked so close to the curb?!

At this point, I'm only half-awake but fully pissed. Kelly gingerly set the mirror casing down on the floor in front of me and left to go to class -- which she was on her way to before she saw the remains of my car mirror outside.

A few hours later, after preparing myself to get upset all over again, I went outside to see what happened to my precious car.

I found this.



*sigh*

But you know what's worse...?

Do you see those slightly darker spots on the mirror? The sort-of splatter in the lower corner?

That was blood, before it was washed away by the rain.

Yes. There was blood on my car.

WHAT THE #%&@ HAPPENED TO MY CAR?!

To make it even more maddening, there was no other damage to any part of the car other than the mirror. No scratches, no dents. Just a splattering of blood and an obliterated sideview mirror.

My car was a crime scene. And I had no way of piecing together what exactly the crime was.

I was so pissed, I just went back into the house and sat down. Quietly.

* * *

I've knocked off a car mirror before. Lola's passenger's side mirror, in fact, not long after I drove her off the dealer's lot. (She's my first car, and I have a theory about people and their "firsts" -- invariably, they find some way to eff them up.) When I sought out a junkyard to replace the broken part, I came back with a white mirror that stood in stark contrast with my aqua blue car. Now here I was again, placing an order for a mirror whose color I wouldn't know until I arrived at the shop.

I shook my head in shame. Lola was about to have two mismatched mirrors. My baby was going to look so bootleg.

So imagine my surprise when, after arriving at the junkyard, I'm handed a mirror that's the same, exact color as my Lola. I'm especially thrilled because Lola's paint is a discontinued hue. What are the odds?

"Sweet!" I exclaim to no one in particular. "It's the same color as my car!"

I was hype. But for some reason, no one else in the shop seemed to care.

*

Fifteen minutes and 50 bucks later, Lola is refurbished with a new/old mirror. I thank the friendly mechanic who so quickly fixed up my baby, and drive off the lot.

"You're like new again!" I say to the steering wheel. Then I look over to the unpainted mirror.

"Well... almost...."