Now I'm sure the only person who will find this even mildly interesting will be Heather. When I turned 16 there wasn't a shiny new car waiting for me. We were a 1-car military family [1 car and about 10 motorcycles] as it were so there was no way I was getting anything fancy. I shared our family truck for a while and shouldered much of the maintenance such as washing, waxing and changing the oil myself. I think my dad taught me how to do it mostly because I fit so well under there. I loved hanging out in the garage with my dad as he fixed and tended to our gasoline machines. So finally the day came when we could get another car!
We answered a pennysaver ad for a cream-colored 1973 Mercedes-Benz 280 2.8 litre (c'mon its german) straight six sedan. And so began the love affair for import sedans. When we got it home I wasn't allowed to drive it. We had a lot of work to do first, and I wasn't officially added on the insurance yet...so I spent HOURS cleaning it. Picture a toothbrush. Seriously.
No more duct tape holding up that one window. We went to the junkyard and bought a "new" window louvre thingamajigy. New shocks. New wipers. No more stickers on the windows. That should be a crime. Vacuums! Armor All flowing like water! Polish polish polish. This car could not be washed the conventional way at first. The paint was original and it was so old and porous that it needed to be properly polished first. Lo and behold! My CREAM car was indeed WHITE!
By the time we were both street legal my car was lookin' pretty spiffy! It was the way all cars should be...german-engineered, power windows, real wood on the dash, shiny paint (in most spots), shiny matching hubcaps, a sexy grill and most of all: real live shiny chrome all over. That car was the most solid piece of machinery on four wheels. It didn't accelerate up hills too great but it could creep up into the 90's on the freeway NO PROBLEM.
I loved my car. LOVED it. So what if the air conditioning didn't always work right? It only got up to the low 100's in the summer...bring a towl for the vinyl if you're going to wear shorts! So what if it only had the original AM/FM radio with a dial and one piddly speaker in the center of the dash? So what if i had to lock the drivers side door, close the door, open it, and lock it again to really get it to lock? In addition to all this [and probably more that i'm forgetting] there was also a hole somewhere in the muffler. It wasn't a huge deal, but when I accelerated, it would sound like it was really revving it up, like a race car. Or mayhaps, a Speed Racer.
The Speedracer and I were met with rolling eyes quite often my senior year of high school. "We have to ride in that?" Some people have no respect.
The Speedracer and I had many bonding experiences together, such as our first emergency call box phonecall. "See Dad, I told you we needed to get new tires." That's right. My tire EXPLODED on the freeway. It left dents from the inside of the fender. **sob**. There was also that time I ran out of gas in the middle lane near one of the busiest freeway ramps in San Diego -during morning rush hour- even though the gas gauge read "1/2 tank." Another trip to the junkyard.
Then things really started to go downhill. I'd overheat, quite often. I got used to lugging gallons of water and driving with the heater on. The end was near when she would start billowing blue smoke once we got over 40mph. That really put a damper on city driving. No longer could we cruise the California freeways without a care in the world. This was a repair that would be costly to fix...and did it make good financial sense? Sadly, I never saw the fate that was in store for Speedy because I left for college before that summer quite ended and never saw her again. I like to think that she is in that big junkyard in the sky.
So when I was at college that first semester, setting up my very first personal email account username, ChristineL was already taken so I chose the next best thing: Speedracer280. And there you have it.
PS: evan i hate it when you read over my shoulder while i'm typing. just sayin'.
