With Pants and Window Down

Caught.

On a recent trip involving a flight I drove to the airport, parked my car in an outdoor lot, took the shuttle to Departures, and departed. When I got back I did the same in reverse, the shuttle dropping me at my car. It was at the end of a row, I approached from the driver’s side and as I did noticed something amiss, something afforded by the clear view. The driver’s side window, it wasn’t there. It was as if open. I stopped on the spot, observed a moment of shock and quiet horror, continued toward the car, and then, as if to test with touch what my possibly deceiving eyes were telling me, stuck my head through the opening. It was true. No window.  

Head now inside the car I took a moment to survey the scene for signs of vandalism. Broken glass? Theft? No. I withdrew my head, unlocked the door, got in, and looked more closely. What else might be wrong? My feet. They made squishy noises. They seemed to be sitting in a carpeted puddle, the floor mat boggy. The car started but as I drove drips dropped from the steering column onto my legs. Condensation obscured my view of the dials on the dash. Droplets dribbled from the housings around the door-mounted window and lock controls. Hurricane Lee, downgraded to a tropical storm, perhaps a mere depression by the time it hit the parking lot, had blown through while I was away and into my car. In the days since, the hot sun had dried out the seat but everything else was waterlogged.

I drove my wheeled and weeping sponge to the parking lot pay booth. There, there, I said, I’ll get to the bottom of this. I patted the dash. Excuse me, I said, interrupting two employees, Was someone using my car while I was away? Silence. No response. My suspicion grew; I was onto something. My window was down, I continued, Was someone driving it? Ah, one of them said, That was you, We noticed the window, It’s been down all week, No one’s been driving it, he said. In other words there’d been no joyriding, it hadn’t been joyridden, joy did not enter into it, I could rule that out. But that still didn’t explain why the window was open. I still needed someone to blame.  

I felt bad for suspecting the parking lot staff and I continue to pay the price for a car made to hold water against its will but what really gets me is how majestically I leapt from “window open” to “not my fault.” It wasn’t even as if I’d formed the thought that the best defense was an offense because I had as yet to entertain the notion that I might be the one responsible, that I might need defending. I did not spend so much as a minute, a second, thinking maybe I was the culprit, that maybe I’d left the window open. Impossible. 

And why would I? Why would I suspect myself? I don’t leave windows open. I’m not that type. I’m not addle-brained. Absentminded. The contrary. If it’s best to measure twice and cut once I’ll measure three times. Just in case. I’m a list maker, I leave nothing to chance, chance is mug’s game, I’m not a mug. An excess of caution is more to my liking.

Locking my car requires a physical key, there is no fob. I had to stand facing the door, touching it, to lock it. Furthermore, my particular make of car allows me to close all four windows simultaneously with an extra twist of the key. I delight in that feature. I use it at every opportunity. These things taken together were all the evidence I needed to prove that it couldn’t possibly have been me. I’d’ve seen the window was open, it was right there, and I’d’ve used my favourite feature to close it. If the thought that I was the one responsible crossed my mind at all I paid it such short shrift and drop-kicked it so effectively from my mind that I don’t even recall seeing it go by.

What twist of nature is it that compels some of us to plough past the obvious in pursuit of more pleasing if patently ridiculous explanations? Pride? Determination? Pigheadedness? I had me, I had my man, my suspect. I needed no one else. I had motive: I was distracted, the shuttle was waiting, I’d rushed. Simple. But accepting that I’d left it open would form another in a small clutch of things that suggest the speed and mental agility and sharpness with which I once credited myself and commandeered the world are possibly past their waxing phase. They’re waning. Waning in my car and elsewhere.  

I’ve started a small mental junk drawer where I toss experiences that don’t add up, are at odds with my self-view, and need ignoring. It’s getting fullish. I’m reminded with a frequency approaching noteworthy that my assuredness is failing at the speed of spent elastic, my assertions ending up around my ankles. My certainty is proving less certifiable. Or rather the assuredness with which I once asserted myself is still intact but evidence that it is misplaced is mounting. I’m not always right. Or maybe I’ve never been right, perish the thought, and I’ve just been too blustering and self-assured to notice. It’s all indigestible food for thought. 

I like being certain, it suits me. I’ve never been an authority on anything but at least I’ve had my conviction. You could ask me anything and I’d have an answer. The answer. It was just a matter of applying the right amount of certain. Say it with confidence, I told my kids, Whatever it is, Whatever you say, Others will believe you, They want to believe you, It’s a team effort. But now I’m not so sure. It’s hard to see one’s certainty exposed to the unforgiving light of unassailable fact, harder still to accept that it might have been that way all along. 

My mistakes are typically of no consequence. No one’s lost an eye or died. I’m settling into this whacky new reality of occasionally being wrong. Accepting it. About the open window I finally had to admit to myself that maybe it was me. Maybe I’d left it open. It was a start. Progress. I’m thinking that in general I should proceed on the assumption that my dress is perpetually caught in my underwear or there’s something stuck in my teeth or hanging from my nose or my fly’s down and I don’t know it and someone or the phenomenal world is about to put me right. Humility. I think that’s the skill I should perfect.