It started with a lie. Actually, it never really started. My battery wasn’t the problem; it was simply my starter. I tried to explain to the repair shop foreman that my battery wasn’t very old. He didn’t listen. When I tried to tell him again that I was pretty sure it wasn’t my battery, he said I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was stuck. I’d arrived by tow truck.

He said they would look at it and let me know. Go have a seat. Off I ambled to the designated waiting area. There was one couple already waiting. There was the smell of a neglected coffee pot and standard waiting-room, flat-screen blaring sports. It was the first Saturday of the year, the day after New Year’s Day Friday. Most people were on a mid-winter break. People seemed stunned, extra holiday dazed.

The couple left after about twenty minutes. I can do my job remotely so I just started looking at work emails and drafting answers. Time slipped off into work mode. Another customer wandered in and then another.

Someone from the dealer’s staff checked on the coffee and began to half-way start a fresh pot. I looked at the time. I walked back over to ask the foreman how it was going. Apparently, the mere sight of me walking back towards his desk annoyed him. He just shook his head like I needed more than words and turned his back. I ignored him ignoring me.

 I told the foreman that I really wanted to be able to communicate more effectively with him. I asked him if there was another way for me to explain myself. He looked at me like I’d asked him if he wanted a scoop of poop ice cream. Asking him for an update was apparently almost an Original Sin.

And that is how the first Saturday of this New Year started, or like I said when I started writing this, it never really started.

The car did get fixed. It turns out that the battery wasn’t dead. I found that out today when I took it off the floorboard of my back seat into the auto repair shop where I’d bought it a year and a half ago.They tested it and it wasn’t dead. I’d been lied to.

I want to start my New Year over, so for me it hasn’t started. That is my starter lie. I am starting over.