Life, Cars, and Everything In Between

How I Met Her

It was a pretty hectic day at Times Square. People were rushing to places, running errands, although when I say errands, most of them were either window shopping, actually shopping, or even targeting those two (yep, talking about them pickpockets, haha). The point is, it was utterly crowded, and all of them were hustling, as if they were going to die suffocating in pain if they were not doing it as soon as possible. Well, when I say all of them, I mean almost all of them. You see, among those uncontrollable throng, there was this one guy, standing beside an old car, with the hood open. At this point I admit that the guy is, indeed, me. The car beside me is in fact, an old Jaguar. But for me, it is more than just "an old Jag", because this is a Jaguar XJS convertible from 1988. A car created by Jag with some faith that a big 5.3L V12 engine would still make sense in the late 80s, which of course, it didn't. The arrival of Japanese sports coupe in the market obliterated this thing big time, with their sophisticated technology and incomparable reliability, making the Jag looked like those Admiral television set in the 50s compared to a Sony LED television.

But in all honesty though, I never acknowledged this car as a sports car, it's too...I don't know....classy to be called such thing. Classy, as if the driver will always wear tweed jacket with a tiny pocket to store his Luger pistol and cigarette lighter, and spends most of his day solving crimes and in the bed with a lovely lady during the night, or at least in my imagination. Okay, this is starting to veer off to a James Bond story. Or Inspector Morse? Ahh, can't remember. Well, Morse did drive a Jag, so...

Anyway, back to the situation. We can talk about the car later, there's plenty of time, eh? Okay, so it was the day for my job interview at one of the accounting firms at Lenox Hill. I know, it's pretty close to Times Square. In fact, it is probably like 1.5 miles from here. But yeah, holding firmly to the phrase of "so close yet so far", my Jag decided to misfire and splutter here.

Oh boy. I opened the hood, and my thought exactly, the water cooling has leaked, so there were no cooling system flowing through the engine. On top of that, the throttle cable was loose, and one of the spark plugs was sticking out, probably because of the bump I passed earlier. Now, I am quite a handy man, and I know a thing or two about fixing the Jag, but in the middle of a city with no tools, I was desperate. People were looking at me, wondering what does a young executive-ish man doing, sitting next to a broken convertible. I just hoped that one of them magically, or empathically, were willing to hand me a contact number of a nearby towing company, which then will take my car to an auto repair somewhere in Manhattan.

Then, I remembered that I have something called the smartphone, which of course is able to receive information from the internet. Ah well, driving something from the past sometimes can make you forget about development of technology (this is just a lame excuse for my ignorance). I quickly reached my pocket and took my iPhone 5. Okay, you may be asking, this is 2017, how come you still use a phone from 2012? Well, I don't know, I guess I just like it. It works perfectly well since the first time I bought it, and unless you are a social media junkie, who needs big screen? For me, it's just a gimmick, and the size of this phone is just ideal.

I typed the keyword "towing service manhattan", and then I clicked the search button. The little circle in the center started to spin, and spin, and spin. God, how can the internet be so slow in a place like this? I could only wonder. While I was staring at the spinning circle, someone patted me in the back. I immediately looked back, and there I saw a woman, smiled at me. She has this light blue eyes, brunette hair with a bit of blonde here and there, and I swear to God, one of the most beautiful and sincere smile I have ever encountered in my life. I know, sounds really hyperbolic, but can't help it, she is. By the looks of it, she is probably around the same age as I am, 25-something perhaps. Before I drown my imagination in those exceptional eyes and lips, she asked,