Lost & Alone
Low Swank | About | All Essays | Subscribe
About 20 years ago I had a coworker named Andie, whom I loved and feared in equal parts. She was breathtakingly mean but very, very funny about it (which, for better or worse, kind of excused it as a sin), and she cursed like no one I've heard before or since. This was in stark contrast to her exterior, as she'd always sort of reminded me of one of those Dust Bowl women from the 1930s. Not the Dust Bowl woman—weary yet poignant—but (forgive me) one of the straw-haired, weak-limbed ones who stayed and withered on the farm. Ghostly pale and always glum, she would not have looked out of place wearing a calico bonnet and calling for her Ma.
She’d recently driven a small, silver, late-80s Honda-something from Philadelphia in her move to Washington, DC, and had done so without expectation that the car would actually make it all the way down 95. But it had, and who was she not to take full advantage? One spring Sunday she found herself without an agenda, and decided to spend it exploring her new city in full cherry-blossom bloom. After the requisite Tidal Basin cruise, she drove for a while just to see where she found herself.
Deep in a residential neighborhood, the Honda-something sputtered and coughed, coming to a stop in the exact middle of a 4-way intersection. After a few attempts at a restart, she was at a loss. Pushing the car was out of the question (weak limbs), and—being new in town—no one came immediately to mind to call for a jump. She sat there for a few minutes, stricken and staring through the windshield, wondering if she should start knocking on doors.
She heard the car coming before she saw it, or rather she heard the unmistakable car-speaker-strains of Earth Wind & Fire from down the block. Elbow out and leaning from her manually rolled-down window, she watched the Cadillac approach, wide as a parade float and just as shiny. As the music got louder she could begin to make out its driver, an older Black gentleman in his pastel Sunday best. “A churchgoer,” she thought, “Perfect.” She forced her permafrown into a smile and waved as he got closer, preparing her spiel.
Without ever coming to a complete stop, he turned the stereo down and removed his toothpick, pointing it out the window at Andie. In a deep, creaky baritone, he drawled,
“Lost and alone, you bitch?”
With an elegant tip of his hat, he replaced the toothpick and sailed on down the road.
Had they spent more than this fleeting moment together, I feel certain that something—friendship, mentorship, metaphorical bloodsport—would have flourished between these two horribly mean but undeniably hilarious masters of their craft; an evil version of Tuesdays with Morrie, or TheKarate Kid, if Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san were intent on roasting people until they cried. As it were, Andie simply had to accept that she’d been bested by a decades-more experienced opponent.
Lost, alone, and streaked (as ever) with the dust of the plains, she tried the ignition once again. The Honda begrudgingly choked back to life, and the drive back home was uneventful.
“Lost & Alone” emailed out 4.14.2026 with newsletter-exclusive extras. Subscribe for free here.