My Car: an Epilogue
Most of you reading this blog already know this, but just to re-cap:
8.11.04 - I crashed the Volvo. Not my fault, and nobody got seriously injured (I'm having neck problems and I'm getting treatment). I was heading down Alvarado in the outside lane and someone in the oncomming lane turned left, cut across 3 lanes without checking to make sure it was safe, and I hit them. Their 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer is probably totalled, as it was a piece of shit to begin with. I was only going around 25 mph, but I fucked up their front axel. A lot.
My Volvo? I mushed the hood, broke the grille, and broke a blinker. Blinker still works. In fact, everything still works. But the hood doesn't close very well, and replacing it will probably total the cost of the car.
After the accident, my dad, who was brimming with pride at performance of the Volvo and what he considers to have been one of his very few successes in his life, let me drive his Mercedes, and he took my Volvo home. That night he parked the car outside his building, probably between a new Toyota Spyder and Jaguar and whatever other fancy cars park on that street. Sounds safe, right? Well, some enterprising individual decided to take advantage of my grille-less car and tried to pull out those highly sought-after 1985 Volvo headlights. But they failed. So when my dad saw my car the following morning, its right headlight was hanging out, like an eyeball on an optic nerve. I've been parking on that street for 4 years, and nothing has ever happened to my car. In fact, I once accidentally left my car on the street with the keys in the door, and nobody messed with it.
Dad took my car to our Volvo guy. Volvo guy said he couldn't fix it until the assessors from the insurance company checked it out. But for a temporary fix, he fashioned a locking mechanism for the hood out of a wire coathanger, and duct-taped the headlight back in. My car was stylin'.
On his way out of the mechanic's shop, my dad, in a giddy fervor, backed my car into a pole and put a nice juicy dent into the trunk of the car, and scratched the paint deeply and passionately along the side.
All this drama sped up my dad's thought process about purchasing a new car for himself. He bought the CRV of his dreams two weeks ago, thereby making me the sheepish new owner of a Mercedes. I'm sheepish cuz I didn't buy it. What 25-year-old can hold her head high when daddy just gave her a Mercedes? I mean, I'm thankful and all. Just feeling a little bratty/spoiled.
Today I scratched the Mercedes. It could have been avoided. I was very stupid. I was circling around the office, looking for a parking spot, and I noticed this one spot where nobody ever seems to park. There was a large pile of cut bamboo on the sidewalk next to the spot, and it didn't occur to me that this was a bad thing. So I parked. I parked a little too close. Now I have scratches.
Still need to decide on a name for the car. I'm thinking Willis, since it's so 80's. Suggestions?
8.11.04 - I crashed the Volvo. Not my fault, and nobody got seriously injured (I'm having neck problems and I'm getting treatment). I was heading down Alvarado in the outside lane and someone in the oncomming lane turned left, cut across 3 lanes without checking to make sure it was safe, and I hit them. Their 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer is probably totalled, as it was a piece of shit to begin with. I was only going around 25 mph, but I fucked up their front axel. A lot.
My Volvo? I mushed the hood, broke the grille, and broke a blinker. Blinker still works. In fact, everything still works. But the hood doesn't close very well, and replacing it will probably total the cost of the car.
After the accident, my dad, who was brimming with pride at performance of the Volvo and what he considers to have been one of his very few successes in his life, let me drive his Mercedes, and he took my Volvo home. That night he parked the car outside his building, probably between a new Toyota Spyder and Jaguar and whatever other fancy cars park on that street. Sounds safe, right? Well, some enterprising individual decided to take advantage of my grille-less car and tried to pull out those highly sought-after 1985 Volvo headlights. But they failed. So when my dad saw my car the following morning, its right headlight was hanging out, like an eyeball on an optic nerve. I've been parking on that street for 4 years, and nothing has ever happened to my car. In fact, I once accidentally left my car on the street with the keys in the door, and nobody messed with it.
Dad took my car to our Volvo guy. Volvo guy said he couldn't fix it until the assessors from the insurance company checked it out. But for a temporary fix, he fashioned a locking mechanism for the hood out of a wire coathanger, and duct-taped the headlight back in. My car was stylin'.
On his way out of the mechanic's shop, my dad, in a giddy fervor, backed my car into a pole and put a nice juicy dent into the trunk of the car, and scratched the paint deeply and passionately along the side.
All this drama sped up my dad's thought process about purchasing a new car for himself. He bought the CRV of his dreams two weeks ago, thereby making me the sheepish new owner of a Mercedes. I'm sheepish cuz I didn't buy it. What 25-year-old can hold her head high when daddy just gave her a Mercedes? I mean, I'm thankful and all. Just feeling a little bratty/spoiled.
Today I scratched the Mercedes. It could have been avoided. I was very stupid. I was circling around the office, looking for a parking spot, and I noticed this one spot where nobody ever seems to park. There was a large pile of cut bamboo on the sidewalk next to the spot, and it didn't occur to me that this was a bad thing. So I parked. I parked a little too close. Now I have scratches.
Still need to decide on a name for the car. I'm thinking Willis, since it's so 80's. Suggestions?
posted by Myasorubka at 11:01 AM
3 Comments:
yes, i too have been scratched by that wretched bamboo.
how do you know your car is a boy?
oh my god!! I'm so glad I'm not the only one!! Although, I am sorry about your car. My condolences.
Anyway. How do I know my car is a boy? I don't really. In fact I've been grappling with some girl names, too. I guess according to that post-modern feminist scale where straight corrolates to white and gay corrolates to blue, my car falls somewhere around a very pale cornflower blue. It may be a little confused or curious or feeling a little experimental. It looks like a guy - straight lines, square headlights (not unlike Hermia, my ex-Volvo - but she was definitely a girly girl and had the temper to prove it), perfect black paint until recently. It mostly handles like a guy, too. It's very if-then. If I push this button, then the window will go down. If I need to check the oil, then the light will go on to let me know. Not so with Hermia. With Hermia it was like, if you turn on the air conditioner, first she'll blast you with some hot air, then she'll slowly start cooling you down - on her terms. The "Brake Failure" light was almost always on, even though the brakes were mostly fine. I eventually learned how to switch it off - by tapping on the brake. Sometimes I would be stopped at a light, and the brake failure light would just come on at will. Ah, Hermia....
With the new car you can pretty much rely on its behaviour. But don't get me wrong - you can still totally piss it off. Turning the car on, for example, is nothing less than a magic trick. I still don't get how it works. First you turn the key halfway, then all the lights on the dashboard go on. Then you have to wait for the seatbelt light to switch off, then some other light to switch off, then you can turn the key all the way and start the car. Sometimes. Sometimes it leads you on to think that you're starting the car, then it just poops out for no reason. And the engine is so quiet that I can't always hear it working.
And another thing - the acceleration and the deceleration. SO SMOOTH. Nothing masculine about it.
Such is my quandry.
I think you can still hold your head fairly high. It's not as though your daddy took you down to the Mercedes dealer and sat you down and said "So what color strikes your fancy, peanut?"
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