Satisfaction in the age of greed

I back my car out of the parking lot and I hear a familiar grind, scrape, and thud. I deflate as my teenage daughter laughs. I scoff with her, and then I look to the heavens (but in this case the drooping ceiling of my Honda is in the way). I know the noises well. The bumper fell off again. It gets stuck on the concrete divider and I never realize it until I back out and it pries off the rest of my car. I get out and smile at the woman in the brilliant 2018 BMW SUV beside me. She removes the giant sunglasses that cover half her face. They’re the sort of spectacles that movie stars wear so that they can be recognized for not wanting to be recognized. The glasses shout, “Hey! Look at me! I don’t want you to see me!” 

Now that she’s unmasked, I squint to see if she's famous, but then I remember that we’re not on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan. We are in a parking lot in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She gazes in her vanity mirror to check for lipstick on her teeth before replacing the face shield, and I notice how her bumper hovers over the concrete divider, instead of resting on top of it, like mine has the habit of doing. Her undercarriage wouldn’t get caught when she’s backing out.

I take my car key from my pocket and apply enough pressure on to the corner of the bumper so that it fits back under the headlights. Then I try to leverage the rest of the plastic molding back into place, although it will never fit perfectly. Too many parts of it have fallen off over the years. My daughter says that I need to use duct tape, but I don’t know. Driving around with a duct tape car seems like a fate even worse than this.