it's not until something is gone...

It's not until something is gone that you can truly appreciate what you had. I tell myself this about the state of silence and a comfortable ride as my car refuses to stop beeping a loud, persistent reminder that I am driving with the emergency brake on. I am in fact not driving with the E-brake on - it is most definitely in the off position, but according to my car it is on and it is the car's duty to warn me about this in the form of an ongoing tone at 1.5 second intervals. Imagine, if you will, driving around like this. I consider my options - which range from hitting it with a hammer, to rolling it off a cliff (will insurance pay me for that?), to getting in the fetal position and sobbing (with the car off of course, because the beeping is becoming simply too much to bear). I call my mechanic who, like most people with a truly useful skill,l receives and ignores such phone calls at 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night. No one wants to be bothered in their off time with such nonsense. To me it's an EMERGENCY!, to him alas it is not.
I call Christie, who advises me (laughing hysterically) to take the bus. She also has a Volkswagen, and consequently is also having car problems; she has been riding the bus for the last three days, and relishes the fact that I may be joining her on our city's smelly public transportation system. "Cool! It's all drunks, drug addicts, homeless and people picking fights with each other!" she exclaims. "It's like being at work, only you're not getting paid!"
So I am currently thinking about where in the immediate vicinity I can get my needs met for the day. Also wondering how far exactly I can drive while listening to the beeping without going insane... And scheming ways to get my mechanic to call me back...
While this is not the worst thing that could have happened in the world, it is indeed an annoying inconvenience.