My ex used a lot of aphorisms. (I could have written “sayings,” but I thought “aphorisms” would make me sound smarter.) Although I’ve tried to forget many of them, one will sometimes pop into my head when the situation is right.

Scurrying to work this morning, I was putting increasing pressure on my gas pedal when I heard a voice in my head say, Your car is not a time machine. Doggone it. I wish I didn’t have to attribute occasional snippets of wisdom to my ex.

He’s right, you know. My car can’t make up for the extra time I spent checking my email or the five extra minutes I lay in my bed in a fugue state refusing to get up. It won’t compensate for all the stuff I decided to do instead of getting on the road when I had planned. A car is a car. It moves me from place to place; it’s not a vehicle to make up for past sins.

Whether it’s a car or some other object, process, or person, I think we all have a tendency to expect more than something is designed to do when we fall short elsewhere. We lean on it to correct or save a situation, when really we just need to own up to our actions.

Which, of course, leads me to another aphorism the ex liked to use: a lack of planning on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on my part.

Dang it.