I Think I'll Treat Myself

Automobiles. In America it's practically essential to own and operate one. To get from Point A to Point B it takes more than just a straight line. Moving along is no longer a matter of perambulating on foot or whipping your oxen. Travel and transport are ruled by the automobile.

Automobiles under my care have a habit of exploding. [Children under my care often have this same trouble, but this post isn't about babies bursting, it's about my relationship with Henry Ford et al.]

When I was 16 I got my driver's license from Al Salazar. It's gauche to say anything bad about the departed, but Al was a terrible teacher. He couldn't have cared less whether his students knew how to drive or not. Al's driver's ed course consisted of: one two hour course in which we watched Red Asphalt; and four turns behind the wheel. Despite my being unable to parallel park, I convinced Al to issue my license anyway. He did. And a few weeks later I had a New Mexico driver's license. And on that license, I had blue hair.

My first car was a nasty-gold Hyundai hatchback that I bought from a mechanic my father deemed honest. The car had sullied fabric, barely went 50 miles an hour and lasted me less than a year. I was 17 when I bought this car and before I was 18 the engine seized up like a stroke victim and died. My father and I took the car to the mechanic we had purchased it from. He took one look at the feeble machine and estimated that years of abuse had damaged the engine beyond repair. We reminded him that it was from him that we had purchased the car not 12 months before and that it could not have been me that put years of abuse on the engine. The mechanic momentarily feigned amnesia and unconvincingly said, "Well, maybe I spoke too soon..."

My first year in college I didn't have a car, but the summer after my freshman year my parents gave me their old Subaru Wagon. Needless to say this was not a stylish car but it did have character, a tape deck, and a turbo engine. Unfortunately, it also had a combustability issue and on a hot day driving north from Albuquerque the radiator blew wide open with the sound and white spew of a bag of popcorn. I had the car towed to a garage my father deemed reputable but proved to be otherwise. The mechanics at the garage first claimed to have done some engine repairs, then claimed to have not yet started the engine repairs, and later amended their story by saying that they had indeed done the repairs and we owed them several hundred dollars. For obvious reasons, we were incredulous of the repair estimates. The mechanics took our car hostage because we refused to pay for repairs that hadn't been made, and rightly so. I never saw the Subaru again.

As I was working out of town for the summer I needed a car and I needed one fast. So my dad and I went to a dealership and picked out a 1994 Mazda Protege. It cost us just over $4,000. It ran like a charm, got great gas mileage, and never leaked oil. Once in a while, when the weather got cold, the horn would go off on its own, and maybe there was a minor electrical problem or two, but the Mazda and I had a relationship. I understood it. I treated it with respect and it took me where I needed to go. It didn't backtalk, fuss or blow gaskets. But while I was studying abroad in Spain, my mother hired our neighbor to do a few minor repairs to the Mazda. Instead, he drilled hole clear through the radiator. Then my mother had the car repaired by an old hippy who I swear had more acid in his spine than a kaffir lime. He was coherent enough to install the radiator properly, but too whacked out to attach the hose connecting the radiator to the engine. By the time I noticed the engine wasn't receiving coolant I had driven my little Mazda 10 miles, and I imagine that the damage to my parched engine was irreparable.

After this incident, the Mazda leaked oil. It overheated. It became bitter and angry. It ran for a few more years, but it eventually pooped out on me while driving cross country.

I went a few years without a car, relying on friends or public transportation to tote me around. But now that I've moved to a new place and am starting a new life (the old one was growing wearisome and filled with troubled memories) I've invested in an automobile. My father says a car is not an "investment" because you will never make money off of it, only lose money. I'm sure he's right. But I bought a new car anyway. A BRAND new car. And it looks just like this:



And in order to increase my car's lifespan, I swear I'll never take it to a mechanic on my parents' recommendation. They'll be lucky if I let them ride in it.