The Tank: My Very First Car

Thanks to biorhythms (see yesterday’s blog) I now have an excuse for today’s laziness, intellectual weakness and overall ogre-like attitude. Since I don’t have the ability to think of a funny concept to write about, I’ve decided to tell you a little story instead.
My very first car. My first car was a loner car…my parent’s used car (and by used I mean ridden hard and put away wet). It was a 1978 Pontiac Bonneville and my dad rebuilt the engine with Buick parts so we called it a Ponti-uick and dubbed it “The Tank”. It was gray…and HUGE. A horse once devoured some of that squishy covering over the roof so it had all these holes in it and the paint was chipping off pretty profusely. It also had no rear shocks so when you drove over the railroad tracks you bobbed up and down for at least another 2 miles. At some point the blinker stopped working so you had to manually click it up and down, which could be done to the beat of the music. The gas gauge hadn’t worked in years and nothing is scarier than walking home…at night…in the country…alone. You had to do math just to keep yourself in gas. “If I put in 10 gallons and get approximately 9 miles to the gallon, I know I can make it to town and back roughly 5 times…approximately…but not accurately”. And it was SO bad it wouldn’t pass inspection at the DMV so I had to rent a car to take my driver’s test.
My brother inherited the car after me and he had the luxury of ordering food at McDonalds through the moon roof as the electronic window’s had since stopped functioning.
As much as I despised that car while it was mine, I find the memories of it endearing. Like a right of passage. Too many kids nowadays are driving new cars their parents bought for them. How will they ever know how to drive a rear wheel drive boat on a sheet of ice up a hill? And how will they ever be humbled by driving up to school in the loudest and ugliest car possible? And how will they ever appreciate a car that doesn’t give you tetanus just by looking in its direction? If I knew then what I know now, I’d have been proud to drive that car.
Hey Mom, did you know I could comfortably fit TEN friends in that car NOT including the trunk?? (insert evil snicker here)