Downhill

Something occured to me the other day.

If my life was a John Updike novel. Or even a John Cheever short story (I think I'm much more an Updike character, but I live in a Cheever world), then I can pinpoint the day that it all started.

"It" of course, is this slow but steady decline, to my present morose state.

Remember back over the winter, when I drove down to West Virginia to visit Mountain Man? And I was driving up the steep mountain road, when all of a sudden, although my foot was on the gas and I was going forward, I started moving backwards down the mountain?

Remember that? The scary descent, skidding all over the road until I went right off it and lodged on a culvert by 3/8ths of an inch? Remember the towtruck that showed up to tow me out and lost control on the same icy road, slamming into the back of my jeep and almost knocking me all the way down into a deep ravine?

Well that was it.

I had to drive around in the Ford Taurus. And when the bill came in, paying the $1000 deductible TWICE (two accidents: me going off the road, and the towtruck slamming into me), that pretty much exhausted my resources. And, then my insurance went up to almost $3000 per year.

So that was when it all started.

I remember at the time being proud of my pluck, my ability to roll with the punches.

But that day the downhill skid started, and it hasn't stopped since.

Huh.

I guess if either Updike or Cheever did use that conceit in a piece of fiction, they or their editors would scratch it out.

I mean, way too obvious, right?

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