As the days roll by here in Canada and I wait for snow to fall, job applications to be rejected and potential landlords to decide they don't want me to move in, I'm developing a kind of cabin fever. Not only am I stuck in limbo, waiting to see if I'll get a great job offer that directs me to one place or another, but the big theme that is emerging during my time here is that no one will return my calls, emails, or friendly anonymous tapping on their windows while they're cooped up inside on a dark stormy night. I've probably had a one in ten success rate with phone calls. For every ten calls I make, I might get to talk to a real human being maybe once. And it's more than likely that that person is calling me back after I've left a message on their answering machine. It got so bad at one stage that I actually had to confirm that I was giving out the right phone number, which I was.
Not bothering to call back is understandable when I've been calling people to harass them about a job they don't have or don't want to give me, but it's completely baffling when you're calling people to say "You know that thing you want to get rid of for money? I'd like to give you money for it."
So, in a desperate attempt to prove that I am in fact a real person and not just some kind of philosphically problematic figment of my own imagination, I decided to buy a car. Buying a car would not only force other people to acknowledge my existence, it would also allow me to travel in the rain (since hitching in the rain is pretty unreliable), and move all my crap around (I've previously stashed a bunch of ski gear in Revelstoke, since hitching with skis is frowned upon). In the spirit of my last post, I should also admit that buying a car would allow me to leave Revelstoke, because it looked like it would never stop raining, and that it would (depending on the car) make me feel like a big man.
At first, the buying a car project went well. Stephanie, the owner of the crazy old house where I was housesitting/helping out knew someone who was selling a car etc. etc. It turned out they were selling a cheap van which was easily impractical enough to make me feel like a big man, and although the body of the vehicle was pretty rough it seemed to run OK. So, a positive start. Then I tried finding winter tyres (over here people switch to different tyres to drive on the snow and ice). There were a cheap set on the online classifieds, but of course the seller didn't return any calls. In the end I bought a set from a mechanic, and the whole process (from calling the first tyre guy to actually driving away with the van) took FOUR DAYS. It took Jesus less time to rise from the dead, and he didn't have one of those pneumatic tyre wrenches.
This van was significantly cheaper than any other car I've bought. Perhaps one good reason for that is that when you drive the car up a steep hill (like the one that gets you to the town of Rossland) white smoke or steam pours out of the bonnet. So, instead of using my awesome van to get to job interviews, it's at a mechanic's getting inspected. However, since buying the van I've dramatically improved my hit rate on phone calls - I'm two from two! If this thing never runs again and just serves as some kind of talisman to prove that I'm not the only sentient being left in the world with a telephone, it will be money well spent.
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