by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com
I have a beater of a car.
It’s birthday was in the year 1999.
It’s older than a fair whack of people alive today.
The other day I was scrolling and came across a lady who said:
“Why do the best guys always have the shittiest cars?”.
Well I can only agree with her assertion.
And the obvious answer is:
Because we are not materialistic.
So onto the subject.
My car tire has a slow leak.
I’ve monitored the situation and you can drive on it for three days,
But then of course you must inflate it at the servo.
Or should I say ‘Gas Station’.
You will have to excuse me –
For I have a half kiwi half aussie vernacular.
I’ve ‘done time’ on both sides of the Tasman – so to speak.
Anyway, when I discovered the leak I first thought
“Hmm I will get that fixed immediately”.
But then I had a second overiding thought:
“But that’s so stock, why not choose the contrarian path…
…After all – you do love Philosophy”.
So that’s what I’ve been doing.
I have discovered you can indeed drive on a flat tire for three blocks,
Then inflate it at said Servo/Gas station.
The other day I even drove their with my overweight mother riding shotgun.
I crawled along at 30 km/h along the back streets,
I made sure I only made left handed turns for safety.
Git there and ‘did the necessary’ as we Kiwi’s say (or do aussies say that?).
This may all seem rediculous,
That a well educated forty eight year old small business owner would do this.
But as I have found – when you age your life can become suddenly too dull.
Sure in my case perhaps that’s just because I partied way to hard in youth,
And so now with age ‘standard life’ now seems overly dreary –
But what can I say – we all live the lives we have had, don’t we?.
Perhaps this could be a warning sign – that I need to move to the city.
The wags say ‘he’s so bored in that small town he’s driving on flat tires for kicks’.
Well, I guess their must be a smidgen of truth to that yes – I am a reasonable man.
But I as I already mentioned it’s merely a need to be contrarian –
But then the other wag pop’s head over pulpit and whispers “but what’s the cause of that?”
Well perhaps it’s a generalized fear of anything external to my own mind,
Due to a number of childhood trauma incidents that have scarred me for life.
Trauma that has been buried so deep for so long that it can only emerge within the ‘safety of the absurd’.
Such as the choice to drive around on a slow leak-flat tire seemingly just for kicks.
Of course I am engaging and indulging the Americanism of ‘casual pop psychology’.
But at the same time – what if I’m right?
In the absence of knowing the correct path of action –
I will monitor the situation namely the p.s.i. of my remaining three tires.
And if one day things escalate and I find myself ‘driving happily on all four rims’ –
I’ll do nothing at all, keep driving and see what eventuates.
After all – I am a bored, small-town-trapped, unmedicated contrarian with an interest in Philosophy ain’t I?
But don’t worry, on a final serious note I’ll sort the tire out next week, or maybe the week after that.
What’s that my dear fine wag calling out from the back row?
Yes you are correct I did forget to mention my penchant for procrastination.
That guy I worked with long ago – Matthew from Melbourne – was probably correct:
I am probably in theory at least a “Psychiatrist’s wet dream”.
But when writing of one’s own foibles – that’s is my prerogative, is it not?
“This ramble-a-thon now must end” said the fourth wag in this prose poem.
I agreed and ended it now, after all I was standing on the carpet that he emerged from underneath.
And I do love to end on a self referential tone –
As all madmen who write tend to do.
Anton Martin Smith Writer 