Car Wars Continued

This is being written on the computer of Ramon the Gringo Formerly known as Raymond. If I choose to do so, I could also write this on the computer of Rolando the Panamanian Still Known as Rolando because I have his computer to use while he's away in Spain furthering his education in robotics. What I can't do is write this blog on my own damn computer. For reasons I don't understand, I am unable to get into my blog to write although I am able to go there and read old entries. This is a thing I am not particularly inclined to do as old entries are about as thrilling to me as old food. Ramon suggests that my computer, having been forced to host over 180 blogs against its will has finally said enough! Maybe he's right. We will see how long these alternative laptops can tolerate the monkeymind.

When last we met the Beast, our ancient Toyota Landcruiser, had rolled across a restaurant parking lot with neither driver nor passenger. Like my computer's refusal to allow me blog entrance, this seems to be an act of mechanical will. For those of you who don't believe machines have minds, I say put your ear to an ATM when you try to access money from an account with no funds. That's right, you will hear it laughing. As an act of contrition, I drove the Beast from its personally selected parking space to an insurance office where I purchased coverage in case it, the Beast, should decide to collide with something on its next driverless outing. As an act of gratitude for not having done that so far, I then drove it to Pricesmart where I had two shiny new Pirelli radials mounted on the Beast's rear wheels, the two stops combined lightening my already meagre bankroll by a little over 400 dollars. Amazingly, the Beast's earlier starting problems had resolved themselves and after a few more errands were run and retired, M.E. and I pointed the Beast at Boquete and congratulated ourselves on how much we had accomplished that day. It was perhaps our failure to include the Beast in our back patting that pissed it off and, if I really think about it, I'm sure that during its coughing and sputtering, I could hear it say why do I bother with these people just before it spit out a huge cloud of black smoke and died.

Luckily, for every machine that gives up the ghost at the worst of times, there is another that if treated with love, affection and homage, lots of homage, will come to your rescue. In this case, cell phones were withdrawn from pockets and calls were made. A friend was soon en el camino to pick us up and in no time at all M. E. and I were taken to our separate homes where we did exactly the same thing...drink heavily.

The next morning, bright and early, a thing everyone always says, bright and early, whether they are bright or not and who can really say what's early considering the subjective nature of the definition, and there goes the monkeymind so I better wrap this up, I engaged the car morticians to take the Beast to the morgue where it was declared dead but not done. Apparently there is a way to revive newly dead cars that doesn't require human sacrifices and black magic. I am not quite sure of the details, but it starts by opening the hood and throwing in large amounts of money. About this, I'd need to think.