Thanks for Making My Dreams Come True
I drove BMW's for twenty years. I loved the way they handled. Working as a private eye, I felt safer in them, could maneuver through traffic better. But after 20 years of rolling over the leases, I was paying $799 a month. And the repairs resulted in killer bills. Earlier in this decade, I began noticing the 1994-96 model Chevrolet Impala Super Sport with its monster engine and its sling-low race car look. Every time I saw one, my heart went pitter-patter. I dreamed of getting out from under the huge monthly BMW lease payment, but I couldn't because I had put so much mileage on the darn thing that it was up-side-down in value. I dreamed of driving a black Chevy Impala, winding my way through traffic with the help from nearly 400 horses. I even prayed to God that he make it possible for me to get out of the lease and into an Impala. Several times, in fact. Prayer. Like, "Dear God, You know I need to lower my monthly payment, and You know how happy it would make me to have a black Chevy Impala SS, so please, dear Lord...."
And then on a sunny afternoon at an intersection in Ventura, God answered my prayer. As I entered the intersection at 35 miles per hour, a 300-pound woman wearing no seat belt made a left turn--sort of--in front of me in her 1989 Buick. We hit head-on. My airbag didn't deploy. The impact turned the front of my Beamer into an accordion. I was not injured. Not a bump, not a scrape, not even a sore neck the next day. After the impact that brought my car to a standstill in a millisecond, I sat there in the intersection of Main Street and Ventura Avenue, listening to her two kids cry from non-life-threatening head injuries (they weren't wearing their seat belts ), and, when I realized I was completely whole and feeling no pain, I closed my eyes and said: "I'm gonna get my Impala! Thank you, Jesus!"
Five days later, I drove out of the Santa Paula Chevrolet dealership in a shiny black 1995 Chevrolet Impala SS for a bargain price of $18,000.00. My dream had come true.
I told this story to make a point about how dreams come true. Dreams don't always happen with sugary circumstances and harps playing. Dreams come true after struggle, hardship, and even bad judgment. Some dreams come true involuntarily, whether I want them to come true or not. Now that may sound strange, but I have dreams that, when my lucid brain has a say in it, I know won't make me happy and may actually do me harm. I kept my Chevy Impala for two years and sold it, because I couldn't follow anyone in it. It looked too much like a cop car. It turned my professional life into a nightmare with me burning Subjects. (That means the guys I followed sometimes figured out I was following them and they even tried to head me off occasionally to ask me why.)
I'm not a lucky guy. I tend to have to work hard for a long time to make any of my dreams come true. And, frankly, I've had very few of my "dreams" come true. But this week, I began to see one of my most treasured dreams come true: to begin my journey as a full-time, freelance writer. Wow.
Full. Time. Freelance. Writer. Not part-time. Not working as a technical writer for a corporate giant, having to answer to morons who don't know the difference between a colon and a semi-colon. I'm not there yet, but I see my dream like a wavy image in my mind, like in a Brothers Grimm fairytale--out-of-focus, in focus, out-of-focus--and I'm beginning to see the light shining through the possibilities.
I've worked as a private investigator for nearly 36 years. I've owned and operated my own detective agency for 27 years. I've seen really bad times and really good times. But I've never seen times like these. Private investigators historically do quite well in bad economies. But this economy is so bad for so many reasons that even us vulture culture businesses are being devoured. I've seen my business decline dramatically since around November, 2008.
I'm not going to get political; I'm getting personal.
I want to thank the arrogant, self-serving politicians in Washington for making my dream come true.
I want to thank the entrenched, big-spending bunch in the California legislature for making my dream come true.
I want to thank Arnold Schwartzenegger, that wolf in sheep's clothing, whose idea of being a conservative is to carry a role of toilet paper around to wipe the poop off his nose after every meeting with the California Democratic Leadership in Sacramento, which will likely be the biggest reason I will see my dream come true.
I want to thank President Bush for pretending to be a conservative the last two-and-a-half years of his second term and making my dream come true.
I want to thank President Obama, who never even ran a Dairy Queen, for his grand contribution "running America" to make my dream come true.
I want to thank Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for their particularly absent leadership since 2007 that is making my dream come true.
I want to thank Maxine Waters and Barney Frank for their assurances that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were A-OK when they weren't, ensuring that my dream was coming true.
I want to thank all the spineless Republicans who ignored their core values and instead sat on the fence between common sense and political expediency, just to make my dream come true.
President Obama saw the future. And didn't even know it. He kept chanting, "Hope and Change, Hope and Change." Well, now that my business has fallen, that's all that's left. Hope. And some change in my pocket.
But I don't care. Because I'm going to be spending a whole lot of time at home at my keyboard writing. And working to sell what I write. I'm scared and unsure of it all. I don't know if I can balance the books with my writing. I can only hope for change.
So thanks Arnold, George, Barack, Nancy, Harry, Maxine, Barney and the rest of you for making my dream come true. But come November, guys, I'll be doing my best to end your dreams in the voting booth. You can betcha.
ONWARD.
Posted by Tom Eubanks at 8/18/2010 8:02 PM 
Categories: Finally, Rants and Raves, Picky Picky Picky
Tags: Out of the Shoot Huh Rant
Categories: Finally, Rants and Raves, Picky Picky Picky
Tags: Out of the Shoot Huh Rant
I'm excited for you. Keep us in the loop, OK?
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Will do. I will likely incorporate this transition into my blog, since it's about the travails of a writer. There are others out there who may go the same way in the future or who want to, and if I can detail the process for them--good and bad--I'll feel like I'm doing something productive even if I don't get something sold.
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