blogger profile

Tbrady

Tracy McArdle is the author of Confessions of a Nervous Shiksa and Real Women Eat Beef. She spent twelve years in New York and Los Angeles as a publicity executive at such companies as Turner Broadcasting, Twentieth Century Fox and Sony Pictures Entertainment before moving home to New England to wr...

READ MORE

From Hottie to Nottie

Tracy McArdle

So there I was, getting gas on my way home from a long drive, at one of those Mobil / Exxon / Fast Food Place / Candy Bar Purchase Opportunity places on a Sunday afternoon.

I was tired, I was not wearing makeup, and I was clad in flat shoes, old jeans and an ugly stained shirt.  It had been a long day.  I was driving my 3 year old Jeep Cherokee, a brand that I thought fit my personality three years ago (outdoorsy but stylish, fun loving, free chick) that now seems hopelessly suburban stupid (get a hybrid already, Frumpie Mumsie.

And it was covered with mud, from last weekend’s trek to see family in Vermont.  If you haven’t been to Vermont, they have four seasons: Winter (6 months), Summer (4 weeks) Stick Season (previews winter) and Mud Season (three months.)  It was Mud season.  In short, my car was gross.  Not the car of a hottie.  It also has some scratches and some peeling bumper stickers.  My car these days gets me places and serves as a second closet.  It is not an accessory like my cute black VW was five years ago.

I was on the cell phone catching up with a friend in New York, because driving on long trips in my car is designated “catch up with close friends” time.  Pathetic, but standard, I’m afraid.

So I’m chatting and backing into a spot in front of the $3.90 per gallon sign and I bump into the car behind me.  I say bump because I was travelling at 3 mph with the brake on.

A hot, youngish, rich-ish looking guy suddenly lept toward me screaming “You just SMASHED INTO MY FUCKING CAR!” 

I hung up (busted) and got out.  “God I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, is it ok???” I feigned appropriate heavy concern an apology.  He of course, was driving a pristine black Lexis.  The thing is, if someone backed into me at the pump, I wouldn’t really care.  I guess I don’t have the kind of pride for my things that I used to.

“God, I’m sorry!” I said, thinking that if I kept calling him God he’d start to fogive me.  I started to rub the mud smear off his bumper (yes, bumper.)  “DON’T!!! he screeched.  You’ll SCRATCH IT!!!” 

“Let me give you my information, God, I’m so sorry....”  It was then he saw my pregnant belly.  And the one year old in the backseat.

And then he looked at me, my car, his car, and I felt it – I FELT IT AS IF HE’d SLAPPED ME – the unmistakable wave of pity mixed with a whiff of sheepishness.  “Forget it,” he muttered. 

“No, I insist,” I insisted.  Let me cover the cost of buffing out the scratches.  Here’s my number.”  I waddles over, handed him a car and peered into the interior of the Lexus.  It smelled brand new and looked like the inside of a spaceship.

He looked at me, then looked at the ground, and I suddenly felt very... diminished.

Has this happened to you?  A complete stranger sees you as someone you always feared becoming?  Was I a dowdy, pregnant,  cell phone wielding, SUV driving stupid suburban idiot inconviencing this slick metroplitan hipster?  I looked down at his feet.  He was wearing golf shoes.  I had cheap knockoff clogs from Marshall’s. 

How different our Sundays must have been, I thought, noticing he wore no ring and assuming he was on his way home to meet his hot girlfiend at a cool new restaurant for dinner and then I thought, I used to date guys like you.  I used to be a hottie.  I used to live in LA and New York, and I had a...a...wardrobe. I had a body, and good hair.  I had the right lip gloss.  Not to descend into self pity but I was not the frumpie, stupid, stereotypical woman driver who hit his Lexus.

Or was I?  He no longer cared.  He just wanted to escape the moment, this moment that derailed my week.  He sped off.

I didn’t buy that candy bar.

Has this happened to you?