Working In My Car

Back in the days that I sold Mail opening and extracting machines up and down the middle Atlantic and southern states I felt like I lived in my car. Some days I would have to visit a client at six in the morning because that was the time they got the trays and trays of mail they needed to open and I had to access how many machines they needed to buy to help with that task. So glamorous. Other days I would drive three hours from DC to Richmond and go see a client and then drive down to Williamsburg to see another and over to Chesapeake for another.

I did everything in my car. Ate my breakfast, wrote my proposals, put on my make up. Sometimes I took my dog Beau with me. I would sneak him into my room at the Holiday Inn since the doors opened onto the parking lot. He was such a good dog. I could leave him in the car, parked in the shade, with the windows open and no one bothered him and he just hung out. No one wanted to steal my company car or anything in it, especIally from a parking lot of a utility company that was one of my customers.

Today I feel a lot like I did back in my twenties, working out of my car. I drove over to Raleigh early in the morning to teach two classes at one club. Thankfully the club gives me lunch and I enjoyed it with two of my favorite students, Dell and Holly. At four I finished my second class and I had two and a half hours to kill before my third class of the day.

I went to Kinko’s to make copies for an upcoming class. Drove by Whole Foods where I got some chicken salad for dinner which I ate in my car listening to my book club book, “The secret history.” I paid some bills online from my car. Now I’m writing my blog in the car because I will be too exhausted by the time time I get home tonight at 10:15. I will have to go right to bed since I get up tomorrow and do it all again.

The only things that are different is I love teaching Mah Jongg so much more than selling mail opening and extracting machines and I can’t bring my dog to work with me. Still, what’s old is new again. My car is my office.