Dashboard confessional

The Jeep hit a milestone Thursday. And apparently, I thought no one would believe me if I just told them? Why else would I take a picture?



What? I had to slow down to take the picture. Because while texting and driving is now against the law in our increasingly totalitarianistic state, as far as I know taking pictures while driving is not.

One hundred thousand miles. Or by my rudimentary calculations, somewhere between $12,000 and $18,000 in gasoline. I started thinking what if gas were half the price it is now, how much money could be poured back into the economy. So let's say $7,000, multiplied by a guesstimated 200 million licensed drivers, where each abacus bead represents $100 billion dollars, carry the one, the total comes to roughly $1.4 trillion. Per one hundred thousand miles driven, of course.

Thursday was also my Dad's 61st birthday. I'm not sure how many miles that equates to, but fortunately Dad has always been pretty low maintenance.

Once again ignoring his requests for socks, I got him a gift card to one of his favorite restaurants and a fairly lame card. That's because I'm pretty sure the only decent card they had was the exact card I got him last year. And I looked in three different stores! The selection of greeting cards in this country is beyond atrocious.

We had a small gathering at my sister's. Dad was there, as you might imagine, since it was his birthday. But Nephew Bone was the star of the show, as he has been since making his debut almost three years ago. He has progressed from saying "Bama" to now saying "Amabama," which we unanimously agree is the cutest thing ever. Of course, I had to joke that Mom and Dad didn't think it was all that cute when my sister started saying "Amabama." Then again, she was nine.

After supper, Nephew Bone took me by the finger (unknowingly causing my heart to instantly melt), and led me back to the hayfield. He had me put him on top of a hay bale. Then my sister's dog, Pepper, jumped up on one, presumably to protect Nephew Bone? I dunno.

Anyway, there were eight or ten bales lined up with small enough spaces in between so that you could step from one to the next. Suddenly, Pepper started racing back and forth on top of them. She looked like a greyhound at the track. Well, Nephew Bone just thought this was the funniest thing ever. He nearly fell off the hay bale he was laughing so hard. I reached to steady him. He could barely stand. It was one of those can't-catch-his-breath laughs, and it was just perfect.

Mostly, the miles rush by in a blur, by the hundreds and thousands. But a few are worth slowing down for, if only to take a mental picture.

"If we had an hourglass to watch each one go by, or a bell to mark each one to pass, we'd see just how they fly..."

The time Google saved me 300 bucks

Blogust rolls on. We're on our 4th consecutive day of over 100 degrees here. Don't tell anyone, but I secretly love the heat...

One night last week on my way to go for a run, the keyless remote wouldn't unlock the car door. Shifting seamlessly into MacGyver mode, I used the key-shaped object attached to the remote and was somehow able to manually unlock the door. I figured maybe the battery in the remote had died.

When I got to the park, I noticed something else askew. The interior lights wouldn't go off. I opened the door and closed it again, took out the keys, got out of the car, closed the door and waited for thirty seconds. I did everything but march seven times around the car blowing a trumpet. The lights were still on.

Finally, I discovered if I turned the dimmer switch all the way down until it clicked, the lights would go off. However, this meant that they wouldn't come on when I opened the door. And also that I would scarcely be able to see the speedometer, gas gauge, and most importantly, the radio, when driving at night.

Befuddled, I googled a couple of things and found a site with several suggestions of things to try. Such as, disconnect the battery for ten minutes, check to see if a button in the driver's side door might be stuck, take out all the bulbs, sell the car for scrap, etc.

The situation grew even stranger the next day when I discovered that nothing on the driver side door panel worked: mirrors, windows, door locks, my Dixie horn (kidding!), nothing. So I decided to call Dad and see what he thought. He said he'd drive over Friday afternoon to look at it.

In the meantime, I googled again with my new details. This time I found a site where a couple of people had suggested that there was a short in a ground wire in the driver's side door.

Well, long story slightly shorter, that ended up being exactly what it was. After removing the rubber boot from the door revealing a cluster of wires, we found a large black one that had been completely snapped in two.

All that was left was a trip to Radio Shack to give them my phone number and pick up some crimps and extra wire. Total cost, about ten bucks. So thank you, fixya.com. And thank you, Google. You are amazing. I predict that pretty soon, people will be performing medical procedures on themselves.

I can see it now: "I'm sorry, Mister Bone, but it appears that you used AskJeeves to perform your self-tonsillectomy. Unfortunately, that is not one of the preferred-search engines covered by your insurance."

As we got into Dad's van to go to Radio Shack, he put on these huge sunglasses. Before I could say anything -- and believe me I was going to -- he spoke.

"Are these women's glasses?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

"Oh me."

"Let me see 'em." I tried them on and looked at myself in the mirror. "Yep, they're women's."

"It's hard to tell the difference."

"Yeah, it is sometimes."

"Well," he continued, slipping the glasses back on, "I went back and bought a different pair, but I still wear these in the car."

So in closing, if you should see a 60ish man driving around in a white van with Paris Hilton glasses on, I don't know him.

"Fixin' up my car, workin' for a livin'. Drive down to the seashore, lookin' at the pretty women. I'm an American boy..."

There are 10 kinds of people in this world

I suppose my disdain for bumper stickers could be traced to my formative years. My mother insisted on proudly displaying a "Willie Nelson For President" sticker on one side of the rear bumper of our maroon 1977 Cutlass, and a "Honk If You Love Willie Nelson" sticker on the other side.

And sometimes people honked!

Several years ago when I was at a different job, some girl -- for reasons unbeknownst to me -- bought a "Pimp Daddy" bumper sticker and gave to me one day at work. I did not display it on my vehicle. I did not see the point. For in my mind, having the sticker on my car made me no more or less a pimp daddy than I already was. Also, there would have been questions from my mother. And I didn't feel all that comfortable driving it to church like that.

I do not care for bumper stickers. I do not generally find them all that clever or witty. And I do not think their little sayings are influencing anyone to change their opinions or views. It's a stretch for me to believe that JoeSUV is going to sell his car, start biking to work and become an avid recycler just because of something he read on the back of a '94 Geo Metro.

I'm also ashamed to admit that I have been and continue to be guilty of sticker profiling. If I see a car with a bumper sticker or stickers on it, I immediately stereotype the person in that car. How I stereotype them depends on the type of sticker, the number and placement of stickers, and how many of them are outdated.

For example, peace-loving environmentally-conscious people with more than five bumper stickers tend to not be all that concerned with washing their car. And the more stickers they have, the less concerned they seem to be.

What? Don't hate me. If I do not stick, do I not bleed? Maybe I can go to bumper sticker sensitivity training or something.

All that aside, my #1 issue with bumper stickers -- other than the tackiness -- is their humor, or the lack thereof. I feel like I have a pretty broad sense of humor. But at least 95% of bumper stickers that are supposed to be witty only make me cringe. I don't find them funny in the least. Not even in that corny-joke-that-dad-tells-in-front-of-everyone-at-Thanksgiving-dinner sort of way. And as a sorta-wanna-be comedian, it bothers me greatly to think that someone somewhere is laughing at some of these things.

I don't even really think bumper stickers were intended to be around this long. It is my personal belief that they were originally designed to be a passing fad. Like "Baby On Board" signs, smoking, and Survivor. In any kind of movie or show from the future that I watch, there are no bumper stickers. I don't recall any "My Klingon beat up your honor student" sticker on the back of the Enterprise.

Over the past thirty-some-odd years, I have read hundreds and hundreds of bumper stickers. Unfortunately, I have forgotten nearly all of them. But here are a few I've seen recently that I would like to examine more closely:

Drunk Like Bible Times - I went back and forth between thinking this one was a pro-alcoholic sticker or a religious one, but I think I've settled on the latter. I never came away from reading the Bible thinking that drinking and revelry was a central theme. I don't recall reading the verse "Gad and Asher gotteth plastered around the ninth hour" anywhere.

Charlton Heston Is My President - This one was also a bit nebulous, as I didn't recall Heston ever running for the oval office. Then a light bulb went out. No really, one did. In my office just now. That was a little freaky. It was the Gad and Asher line, wasn't it?

Anyway, I figured out what it must be. Charlton must have played the President of the United States on some old movie and this poor, misguided soul got confused and thought it was real life. I understand. Happens to me all the time with General Hospital. I sped up to try and explain things to the guy, but his truck seemed to be lacking any semblance of a muffler, so he wasn't able to hear me.

Well Was Full, So I Came Back - We saw this one on the way home from the beach this summer and it completely befuddled me. Then, weeks later, it hit me like a bolt out of the blue. It said "HELL was full," not "Well." Oh!!! Well that... still... isn't... really... Fail!

Now before you go calling me the grinch who stole your W The President sticker, let me say that there are some good things about bumper stickers. For example, the smell. They are a rare and delectable olfactory treat.

And there is the occasional cleverly concocted witticism printed onto a piece of flexible plastic with adhesive backside that even I find irresistibly hilarious. For example, here's one I came across on the internet the other day that amuses me to no end:

"Remember, there are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary numbers, and those who don't."

That's gold! Granted, I would never stick it on my car, but that's not the point. Or actually, I guess it kinda is.

"Now they ain't made the sticker for my bumper just yet, but I brake for brunettes..."

Fill 'er up?

A few weeks ago when I had my flat tire, I took it to get it fixed at a service station. Not a gas station, a service station. It sits at what I would guess to be the center of this old town, or at least at the intersection of the two main highways that run through it.

A real service station.

There was a self-service island of pumps and a full-service island, where they still pump it for you. And a garage with six bays where they still do actual car repairs--front-end alignments, brakes, shocks, and yes, tires.

A real service station.

I had driven by it hundreds if not thousands of times and even had some work done there before, but this particular afternoon was the first time I'd ever been inside. As I stepped in out of the Alabama summer and looked around, it was as if I had covered thirty years in a couple of steps.

I was struck by the relative emptiness of the large store area. There was one rack of various snack items--peanuts, chips, and such--two coolers of cold drinks, and a shelf of car care items. No bread, no Slurpee machine, no aisles and aisles of groceries. This was no convenience store.

As I sat and waited, no fewer than four mechanics passed through, each with his name on his shirt. They would be talking to some customer about their car or asking the lady at the counter what they needed to work on next, maybe stopping to grab a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner.

A real service station.

It was busy that afternoon and as the minutes dragged on I engaged in bits of conversation with the lady at the counter. She told a couple of stories about the history of the store as I walked around and looked at the numerous pictures on the wall.

There were photographs of the station through the years, including one each from the '60s, '70s, and '80s. In those particular three, you could see the sign outside with the price of gas on it: fifty-four cents in the '60s, eighty-one cents in the '70s, and a dollar and four cents in the '80s. The brand of gas was different and it had gone from two pumps to four and then six, but I couldn't help thinking not a whole lot else had changed.

As I sat back down, I looked out the big front windows at the world passing by. The contrast was not lost on me. Out there, cars whizzed by on the four-lane. It was a scene of noise and hurry. Everybody with somewhere to be. But in here, things were quiet. Cool. And just a little bit slower.

On three of the four corners at the intersection of the two main roads that cut through this old town sit a Walgreens and two gas-stations-slash-convenience-stores. On the fourth corner, right in the middle of a town that has sprung up around it, sits a service station.

A real service station.

"He pumped your gas and he cleaned your glass. One cold, rainy night he fixed your flat. A new store came where you do it yourself, you buy a lotto ticket and food off the shelf. Forget the little man..."

In and out of tune

I had a flat today.

Let me rephrase that.

Any mere mortal in my situation would have had a flat today.

I sensed something was amiss with my car last night. Thought a tire was going down. But when I got home, they all looked fine. Then this morning, I sensed it again. So after lunch, I went out and looked and found a screw firmly embedded in one of my tires.

I took it to get it fixed. The lady at the place (how's that for descriptive writing) was asking, "Which tire is flat? Is it completely flat or just low?"
"Oh no. It's not flat yet. But it's gonna be."
"Oh, do you have a sensor that lets you know the pressure is getting low?"
"Nope." Don't need one. Welcome to Preemptively Having A Flat Fixed 101. I'm your instructor, Bone.

I have always been in tune with my car. It's one of my talents. (The other is an uncanny ability to estimate crowds at concerts and sporting events.) I can feel the slightest abnormality and sense when something is wrong.

Maybe all guys have this ability. Maybe that's why we spend so much time in the garage. We feel comfortable there. We understand the car. If it's making a noise or something is wrong, we are usually able to diagnose the problem and either fix it or take it to someone who can. But if a girl is making a noise or something is wrong, well... that can be nebulous. Feeble attempts to fix the problem frequently only serve to make it worse. And you can't really take her to anyone.

I remember several years ago when I was dating M, we had just left my apartment and before we got out of the parking lot, I stopped the car. She asked what was wrong. I said, "I think I have a low tire."

I did. It was almost imperceptible, but I felt it!

If only I were this in tune with women.

"Girls were a mystery that we couldn't explain, and I guess there are some things that are never gonna change..."

Car Wash: The Remake

Today on IYROOBTY, we are proud to announce a modern-day, updated version of a true cult classic, Car Wash. Keen observers and film aficionados may notice a few inconsistencies between the new version of Car Wash and the original. This can mostly be attributed to the fact that I never watched the whole movie.

Really, this is more like a mime version of the original. It stars, coincidentally, a guy named Bone, and naturally, a car wash. The setting is on or about July the thirtieth, two thousand and eight. Here's a brief summary, or a lengthy detailed description. Whichever.

Act The First:

Our star, Bone, is driving around with bugs on his car, a not uncommon human dilemma. He has waited patiently for three days hoping for rain to come and wash the bugs away, but the land remains dry and dusty. Tired of public ridicule and people writing "wash me" on his vehicle, our star decides to take action. The express drive thru car wash is already closed for the evening, so he pulls into the self-service car wash, thinking he'll spray off the car for a temporary fix. (Yes, you can tell what he's thinking by his miming. He's really good.)

Act The Second:

This scene begins with a wide angle view of the car wash, which shows someone washing another car in an adjacent bay. There has been speculation that this someone is one of the original members of Rose Royce, but at this time, that is still unconfirmed. The camera then pans to a close up of the control box and a sign that reads: "$1.50 to start. Extra quarters mean extra time. Quarters must be deposited before time expires."

Our hero (notice how our star has now become our hero) then retreats to his vehicle where he opens the top of a container, revealing a hidden treasure of quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, and napkins. And not just any quarters, but new ones like Oklahoma and New Mexico. (NOTE: Despite an internet leak, this is not the story's climax.)

Our hero deposits nine quarters into the slot, figuring that will give him ample time to spray off the car. After soaping and rinsing the entire car with the super high powered jet sprayer, and in the process speeding up the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome by one thousand percent, our hero discovers that the machine is still running. The camera pans to the foam brush across the bay.

Act The Third:

Still in the car wash, our hero flips the knob to "foam brush" and a hot pink--how shall I describe this--well, foam starts coming out in clumps. In a flash, Bone rushes over and begins to cover the car in pink foamy goodness.

Unfortunately, there is no "time remaining" indicator. Somehow our hero senses his time may be short--not on this Earth, just in the car wash. So he returns to the vessel of loose change, retrieving three more quarters. He deposits them into the slot, but it is too late. The car wash has stopped.

Distraught but not defeated, our star--who was once compared to a young Danny Glover--returns yet again to the vessel of loose change. Using his lone superpower--ability to solve simple math problems without the use of pen and paper--he figures it will require three more quarters in addition to the three he has already deposited to start the car wash again. He has figured correctly.

A thorough foaming is followed by more high powered rinsing and carpal tunnel acceleration. This is definitely the action scene, which includes frequent splattering of the pink foam onto our hero's otherwise manly ensemble of distressed slightly below the knee cargo khaki shorts, bright orange and white fitted striped polo, and American Eagle flip flops. (Can you say endorsement deal?)

Act The Fourth:

Still at the car wash, rinsing is almost complete when the not unthinkable happens. The time has expired again. It is here where our hero appears to yell something. However, to preserve the integrity of the mime performance, this audio has been omitted. It is unclear what he says, but in this instant he appears to be less than enamored with the vehicle cleansing contraption.

And here we have the great conflict in our story. There is still foam on the grill of the car, as well as part of the hood and front quarter panels. Our hero grapples with the decision of whether to spend $1.50 more, or whether to drive out of the car wash looking like an idiot with pink foam covering the front of his car.

Deciding his twelve bits can be put to better use someplace else, our hero devises a plan. He will try and drive really fast on the way home in hopes the suds will blow off his car. This leads us to the requisite car chase scene. Except it's not really a chase. Just a single car race. Against normal human behavior and common sense.

I Plead The Fifth:

(SPOILER WARNING!!!!)
Our final act opens with our hero arriving home. He gets out of the car and walks to the front, appearing both hesitant and anxious to see if his plan has worked.

It has not.

Whether foiled by the 30 mph speed limit or the fact that it was only a four block drive from the car wash home, it is unclear. Our hero is once again down. The pink foam still clinging to the front serves as a sudsy reminder of his latest setback.

Displaying amazing resilience, learned from losing thirty consecutive games of Othello online, this modern-day MacGyver comes up with one final plan. He goes inside and soon returns to the parking lot with a pitcher full of water.

Our final scene shows our hero standing in the parking lot of his apartment complex at 8:30 in the evening pouring a pitcher of water over his car, gracefully and successfully washing away the remaining pink foam. Twelve bits none the poorer.

Who's the idiot now.

"Let me tell you it's always cool. And the boss don't mind sometimes if ya act the fool..."

Great moments in automobile history

The following is dedicated to the clueless individual in the Chevy Tracker-like vehicle that I almost ramrodded into oblivion driving home from a frustrating round of golf...

Allow me to introduce you to the turn signal, also known as the blinker. The turn signal is a safety feature included on every car manufactured since 1956, also known as the Eisenhower administration.

Typically located on the steering column, the turn signal is used by sensible drivers like myself to warn other drivers that the car will soon be slowing to make a turn. Quite an invention, eh?

Yes. Almost perfect. It has but one design flaw: It must be flipped up or down in order to be activated. Otherwise, it is rendered virtually worthless.

It all seems so simple. Even the name itself, turn signal, would seem to be self-explanatory. But apparently not. For you appeared to be well into your thirties or forties, yet still have not managed to master basic turn signal operation.

Or perhaps the turn signal on your vehicle wasn't functioning properly. Well, for that, we have hand signals. Ah, but you probably wouldn't understand those, either.

On second thought, there is one you might know...

"Can't you keep it on your side of the double yellow line. Catch a bus or ride a bike. Call a cab or take a hike..."

How I Roll: Ride, Sally, Ride

Excerpt from a recent conversation:

"I never knew you had a Mustang. When was this?"
"Early nineties."
"Why haven't you done a blog entry about it?"
"Well, that was when my cars stopped being so crappy, so it's harder to make them entertaining... although the roof did leak."
"Was it a convertible?"
"No."

And thus we have the return of the How I Roll series.

I don't remember if we sold the gold Cavalier or not. Some cars are like old underwear. They just sort of eventually disappear. But I do remember the day my parents asked, "Would you want a Mustang?"

The only other time I remember anything close to this happening in my life was when I was nine years old. I had been outside playing in the neighborhood. When I came home, my parents were standing beside the carport talking. They asked me, "Would you want an Atari?"

Of course I wanted an Atari! There wasn't even a question. That was like asking would you want to quit school, or would you want to visit the set of the Neighborhood Of Make Believe.

Likewise, there was no question I would want a Mustang. Especially considering my previous three cars had been a 1980 Monte Carlo, a baby blue Escort with louvers, and a gold four-door Cavalier.

Mind you, my parents asking would I want a Mustang did not equate to them buying me a Mustang. I made the payments. They just found it.

And so it came to pass that my fourth vehicle was a maroonish 1989 Ford Mustang. It was not a convertible. And it was not a 5.0. I was reminded of this when I got into a race with a Toyota Corolla one Friday night and only outran it by half a car-length. ("Oh yeah! Eat some of that 2.3 liter dust!")

However, the Mustang was my first car equipped with power windows. At last, I didn't have to feign power windows by inconspicuously cranking down the window without ever moving my shoulder.

More importantly, it was my first car with both fast forward and rewind buttons for the cassette player. Did it get any better in 1992? Not for me, it didn't.

Then there was the day when Dana Scarborough turned to me in Fundamentals Of Public Speaking and said, "I thought you might like to see these." Her perfect lips, dark sensuous eyes, long spiral-permed brown hair. It took me a few seconds to see the Mustang-related magazines in her hand. It was the first time I had ever been noticed for my car, in a positive light anyway.

I drove it for about two and a half years. Rumor had it that at the three-year mark, you were required to get a mullet, and I didn't want any part of that. Besides, by that time, I had started craving a Jeep Wrangler.

I don't remember a whole lot else about the Mustang. I remember the AC went out at some point. The handle on the glove compartment broke. Oh, and I ran over something coming home from work one night which dented up the plastic underneath the bumper pretty good. And of course, the roof leaked.

But only on the passenger side.

And only when it rained.

"I got a fuel injected engine sittin' under my hood. Shut it off, shut it off, buddy, now I shut you down..."

Keep it between the lines

He would keep an unseen, steady hand on the steering wheel as the seven-year-old in his lap alternated between touching the pedals and looking out the windshield. The boy would ask to drive wherever they went. He would acquiesce to every third or fourth request. And when he did, the boy was on top of the world.

The rest of the time the boy would sit in the backseat and pretend his father was Mario Andretti, and the other cars his competitors. Every stop for gas or at a store was a pit stop. On his knees in the backseat, looking out the rear window, the boy would announce the race play-by-play, keeping an eye on the second place car.

"Don't let him pass you, Daddy!"

Almost overnight, seven turned fourteen, and one day he let the boy drive his old baby blue Chevrolet truck around their backyard. It was a stick with no power steering and the boy didn't know how to get it out of first gear. The ride was bumpy, but the boy was on top of the world.

Some days he would take the family car out to the new four-lane that was still under construction, and let the boy drive the stretches of blacktop from one barricade to the next. Slowly but surely, he could see the boy improving.

Then came fifteen and it was time. The two of them climbed into the family car. And as the boy cautiously pulled onto the two-lane road in front of their house, he sat in the passenger seat, offering advice. Telling the boy to line up the hood ornament with the edge of the road. Cautioning him if he got across the center line or too close to the mailboxes.

The boy was a bundle of nerves, not wanting to make a mistake, forever seeking his father's approval. His hands were shaking slightly as he concentrated only on keeping it between the lines. It seemed the hardest thing for the boy to learn was to use his right foot for both the gas and brake pedals. That one would take a little while.

Meanwhile, sitting in the passenger's seat, he would press his foot into the floorboard time and again in search of a brake pedal that wasn't there. Somewhere amidst the pride and nervousness he felt, he thought about how they would only go thru this once. This rite of passage.

The boy would learn to drive, and then he'd be one step closer to being a man, to college, to marriage, to moving away, to real life. It took all he had sometimes not to reach over and grab the wheel.

Miles passed and almost without notice, the advice and words of caution grew less frequent. Full of pride, he looked over at the boy, smiled and said, "That's it, son. You're driving!"

Palms drenched with sweat and eyes never leaving the road, I was on top of the world.

"He'd say a little slower son, you're doing just fine. Just a dirt road with trash on each side, but I was Mario Andretti when Daddy let me drive..."

How I Roll: All that's gold doesn't glitter

(This is part three in a series.)

After driving a 1984 Ford Escort with louvers, one might think that, vehicle-wise, there was nowhere to go but up.

One would be wrong.

Enter the gold 1985 Chevy Cavalier. Yes, I said gold.

To this day, why anyone would purchase a gold vehicle eludes me. The only possible reason I've ever been given is that gold cars don't show dirt as much.

I've seen a lot of car commercials in my time. They talk about horsepower and miles per gallon, and safety ratings, and towing capacity. I don't ever recall a single commercial including the line "it also comes in gold, which doesn't show dirt."

I mean, do we really want to start basing our buying decisions in this country on this principle? If that's the case, why not have women wear rust-colored wedding dresses? But I digress.

So there I am, age seventeen, cruising around in a gold, four-door 1985 Cavalier. Oh yes, it was a four-door. Convenient when you're starting a family. Not so much when you're a senior in high school and trying to get girls to date you.

There are places in this world--Luxembourg, the highlands of Iceland, and some tribes in Malaysia, to name a few--where if you send your child to school driving a four-door gold-colored car, they will arrest you and take your children away. And that's how it should be everywhere. No amount of therapy can ever erase those scars.

The Cavalier was my second and final hand-me-down. As a general rule, if anyone gives you a car, it's probably not going to be a top of the line high-performance vehicle. That's why in the classifieds, you'll see ads for things like a 1976 Vega that doesn't run for $200. People are still trying to get something for it.

Still, I had high hopes at first. The Cavalier had been my Mom's car, so I figured it had to be better than what I'd been driving.

It was not loaded. As a matter of fact, I would say it was the opposite of loaded, whatever that would be called. Manual locks, manual windows, no cruise control, no cassette player, etc.

It was also a four-cylinder, or at least at some point during its existence had been. By the time I finished driving it, I think it was closer to two-and-a-half or three cylinders.

I got my first taste of the Cavalier's power, or lack thereof, just a couple of weeks after I began driving it. After a party one night, two girls who had left about the same time as me, pulled up beside me as if they wanted to race. So I floored it.

We were even for a few seconds. Then the Cavalier topped out... at 78 miles per hour. There I was, pedal to the metal, watching two girls in my senior class leaving me behind. They slowed down and when we got to the next red light, they were laughing. I was not.

I continued to drive the Cavalier--but did not race it anymore--most of my freshman year in college, where I commuted about 50 minutes one way. One spring day on my way home from school, the car started smoking, and sputtering worse than normal. I stopped and called Dad from a payphone. He came and followed me home, slowly. And I did not drive the Cavalier much longer after that.

"I parked my car beside the highway and I didn't lock the doors. Left a note there with the keys. If it cranks, well friend, she's yours..."

Mine games

I was perusing my last several posts earlier today and realized I don't really do a lot of posts about my current life anymore. Most everything seems to either be a 24 recap, a piece of 3WW fiction, or a story from the past. I figure I can remedy that with a random post that's all over the proverbial map.

The problem with my car did turn out to be the catalytic converter. The guy at the exhaust place was nice enough to tell me the catalytic converter was covered under warranty up to 80,000 miles. My car has 70-something-thousand miles on it. So even though I vowed to never take my car to the dealership again, I made an exception in this case, since it was free.

At work, the walking carcinogen I so fondly refer to as Smokestack is still requiring me to use copious amounts of Lysol. I've also discovered that in addition to spreading lung disease, Smokestack is a notoriously poor speller. This is only compounded by his affinity for leaving post-it notes lying around.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed he'd left a note for Big Sweaty on which he had spelled dairy, d-e-r-r-y. A couple of days later the secretary came in and told me he had spelled Wednesday, w-e-n-s-d-a-y, on his time sheet.

But the capper had to be when I came across a note he'd left for himself. It read:

"Thursday 8:45 AM - Meeting of the mines"

So now anytime Smokestack is talking to anyone, the running joke around the office is that they must be having a "meeting of the mines."

Do you ever feel like you're living that careerbuilder.com monkey commercial?

On the bright side, I already know what I'm getting him for Christmas: Hooked on Spelling! That is, if I haven't contracted emphysema by then.

"Smoking in the boys room. Teacher don't you fill me up with your rules. Everybody knows that smoking ain't allowed in school..."

How I Roll: Part Deux

(This is part two of a series.)

Going from Piggly Wiggly to Food Fair may not seem like a big deal to most, but it was the first move of my career. It meant a higher wage, more hours, and at last, my very first car payment.

As I look back, I realize that my parents either found or handed me down my first four cars. I'm not sure if my Dad had some kind of connection with the crap car black market or what. But in the summer of 1989, the car they found to replace the Monte Carlo was a baby blue 1984 Ford Escort.

The Escort was Ford Motor Company's finest economy car offering. Well, at least since the Pinto. It came standard with a 1.6 Liter sixty-eight horsepower engine, which is roughly the equivalent of three Husqvarna lawn tractors. Mine featured sport stripes down the side and louvers on the back window. Yes, louvers. Back when louvers were "in" of course.

Another feature of the 'Scort was an equalizer for the AM/FM radio and cassette player. Now I don't know if a previous owner removed the subwoofers when they sold the car or what. But the speakers I heard were standard factory speakers, at best. Which made the equalizer about as useful as an extended forecast.

Finally, the 'Scort was stricken with SBD, or Squealing Belt Disease. If you've not experienced this personally, you've surely heard it from other cars. The one and only symptom of SBD is a high-pitched squealing noise, especially prevalent when the car first starts. It can be a bit embarrassing, especially for a 16-year-old in the high school parking lot. But after awhile, you learn to just turn up the radio and pretend you have no idea what everyone is staring at.

There were good times to be had as well. I had my first official pick-her-up-and-take-her-home date in the 'Scort, with the Algebra teacher's daughter. She was also the Physics teacher, which might help explain how I fell asleep at least two days a week and still got an A in the class.

We went out twice. Our first date, we stood outside her house until her Dad starting cutting the porch light off and on, and I ended up breaking my curfew, not getting home until around 1 AM. On our second date, we went to the mall. I bought a New Kids On The Block cassette. And we never went out again.

I was also driving the 'Scort when I began dating Rachel, my first real actual girlfriend. Sometime in 1990, I wrecked the 'Scort, rear-ending another car as I fiddled with my radio or gazed at the countryside or something. It was totaled. Not that it was a bad accident, but as the car only cost $1800 when I bought it, hitting a bird would have probably totaled it.

As I write these posts, I'm beginning to realize they are more about memories of myself and people from my past than they are about any one car. Still as I think back now, I can't help but wonder, were louvers ever really in?

"You're my popsicle. From the very first time I met you girl, you captured me..."

"All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand..."

The title of this post is a quote from Steven Wright. It may seem random, and is, but I think it goes along well with the randomness of the post...

The Alabama football team's annual A-Day game was Saturday. The game normally draws thirty to forty thousand fans. This year, with a new coach, new hope, and an unquenched thirst for a championship, they had to close the gates and stop letting people in early in the second quarter. Stadium capacity is a little over 92,000.

Even I was amazed at a crowd that large for what basically amounts to a glorified scrimmage. Still, it was a nice "tide" me over until the first game, which is now only 131 days away! Bama football fans are often called fanatical. And, well, we don't really consider that an insult.

My Mom, sister, and I went. As we were about to enter the stadium, who do we see but my uncle, aunt, and two cousins. I mean, seriously, out of 100,000 people, what are the odds? I got my first sunburn of the year, sitting on an aluminum bleacher in the 80-degree Tuscaloosa heat for three hours.

Mom got tickled when the crowd started doing the wave. By the third time it came around, she couldn't even stand up she was laughing so hard. It was great seeing her have fun. Even if it did lead my sister to remark to me, "We have got to get her out more."

When I got home that evening, Pablo was swimming around. I mention this because it has become a rare sight. Although I haven't written about it, I've been really worried about Pablo. He completely stopped eating two weeks ago and only comes out of his rock to get air, then goes right back in. Last Wednesday, I bought two kinds of fish medicine and some anti-fungus tablets at Wal-Mart, and started putting in his tank.

So when I saw him swimming around Saturday, I immediately tried feeding him. And he ate! For the first time in twelve days! I was as excited as I've been in a long time. And also hopeful that this means the medicine is working. I don't know what's wrong with the little fella, but I'm trying everything I can.

Saturday night, I drove over to Ben's. Ben and I have been friends since first grade. The night my sister was born (at some absurd overnight hour), after I threw up in the ER waiting room, I wound up at Ben's spending the night so that I could get to school the next day. These days, we don't hang out that much or even talk too often since he got married. I think this was the first time I'd seen him since Festivus.

The house was alive with two kids, a one-year-old and a two-year-old, running crazy. His youngest was eating a banana popsicle. Part of it fell on the floor. He didn't reach down and pick it up. Instead, he got down on all fours and ate it right off the carpet. Ben just laughed. It hit me in that moment that he was in love with his kids. What an awesome feeling that must be.

Sunday, I ran 4.5 miles, which is the farthest I've run since the 10K race last year. I've developed a new low-to-the-ground, low impact running style. It's tougher on the thighs, but much easier on the knees. If you're trying to visualize this at home, it may not sound like the most manly or aesthetically pleasing style, but it seems to be helping. This year's race is May 19th. I'm hoping to better my time from last year, of course. I'm thinking of shooting for a nine minute mile pace.

In other news, I took my car to the mechanic today. It started hesitating and sounding like it was missing dying last weekend. At first, I thought (and hoped) I had just gotten some bad gas. But two cans of gas treatment and one can of fuel injector cleaner didn't seem help. Nor did clutching the steering wheel, looking up at the stars, and saying, "Please, please, please start working." Then I thought maybe some mobsters had mistaken me for the real Jason Morgan and filled my tank with sugar. But the mechanic said the catalytic converter is stopped up. That doesn't sound too bad, although I haven't gotten an estimate yet.

Finally, one of my favorite comedians, Steven Wright, is coming to Nashville!! He's also supposed to be on Letterman tonight. Someone please remind me. (About Letterman, not the concert.)

"From Carolina down to Georgia, smell the jasmine and magnolia. Sleepy, sweet home Alabama, Roll Tide Roll..."

How I Roll

There are few absolute truths in an uncertain world. But perhaps this is one: You never forget your first.

How it felt to touch her. The nervousness and the uncertainty. Learning as you went. Realizing you could take her to places neither of you had been before.

I'm speaking, of course, of my first car.

It was February 1989. When I turned sixteen, my parents decided that I would get Mom's car and she would get something newer. So there it was, a black 1980 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. And it was all mine.

Sure, she had a few miles on her. How many, I'm not really sure, because the odomoter had broken long ago. But I knew it had power. A 3.8L V-6 under the hood. Vinyl seats. Wire wheel covers. (Stop drooling.)

I'll admit there were a couple of quirks, as there are bound to be with any old classic car. There was a slight hesitation problem with the accelerator. It did not exactly have the lightning fast response one would hope for. It took a little sputtering and three or four seconds before those 229 cubic inches of raw Motor City power would kick in.

The Carlo also featured an AM/FM radio with the always-popular-but-never-practical cassette player with fast forward only, no rewind. So if I wanted to listen to a song again, I would have to flip the tape over and try to guess at how long to fast forward it. What einstein came up with this brilliant bit of cost-cutting ingenuity? How much extra does it cost to put a simple rewind button on there?

Then there was the speedometer. Or lack thereof. I drove by RPM's, much like NASCAR drivers do. Somehow I estimated that in high gear, 2000 RPM's equalled to 55 MPH, which was still the speed limit on most roads here in 1989. I have no idea how close I was, but I never got a ticket in that car.

Last but not least, for some reason the car would not stop running for a few seconds after you turned off the ignition. And by a few, I mean anywhere from five to twenty. Many days I remember pulling up to the Piggly Wiggly (my first job), turning off the car, taking out the keys, and getting nearly to the door before it would completely stop. Ironically, when I would crack it back up and start to back out, it would go dead if I didn't jam it from reverse into drive and give it gas all in less than 0.35 seconds.

There were good things about her, though. The cloth interior had come loose from the ceiling and hung fairly low. So, if I rolled the windows down, which I often did since the air didn't work, the wind would give it this super-cool rippling effect. Kinda like horizontal drapes flowing in front of an open window on a windy March afternoon. (Much like those in George Michael's "One More Try" video.) You might be surprised at how much attention this drew around town. Oh yeah! Everyone wanted to get a look at Bone in his sweet ride.

Oddly, I never had a date in that car. Talk about weird! Working at Piggly Wiggly, where my uniform consisted of a brown smock over a button-down shirt and one of those 80's solid colored nylon ties, and driving that marvel of modern machinery, one would think the ladies would have been all over me.

I drove the Carlo for five or six months, until I got a new job at another grocery store and a raise to $3.85 an hour. Then I could afford to get my own car. But I will always remember the black 1980 Monte Carlo. After all, you never forget your first.

(I thought it would be fun to do a series of posts, writing about each of the cars I've had. This was, obviously, part one.)

"I drive fastly, call me Jeff Gordon. In the black SS with the navigation..."