Le Menagerie waiting on the change of seasons
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Trailerfest
Last week was Bikefest, an annual event on the Island where yuppies from all over with too much disposable income trailer their high end, mostly Harley scooters down here and act naughty for a few days, before returning to points north like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio to resume their comfortable three bedroom, two point five kids, nine to five lives as investment counselors, bankers, lawyers and other assorted boring corporate thieves.
The men don leather vests, adorned with many stainless steel chains, baubles and other assorted goodies that they think make them look tough and macho, and the women go braless, or worse yet, wear faux leather (wouldn’t want to offend the PETA members out there). Mostly they cruise up and down Padre Boulevard, a distance of something like three miles, trying to look and sound cool. They go from bar to bar drinking heavily, drinking many pina coladas and manhattans, and for the adventurous, straight shots of rot gut Jose Cuervo tequila. If they get especially lucky maybe their pre-menopausal wives will even lay a bit of pussy on them when they go back to their digs at the Sheraton, Raddison or other condos and hotels which generally are booked to capacity for the event.
The silliest thing I saw during the entire episode was a guy in shorts and Birkenstock sandals riding a fully dressed Road King. I was looking for a bumper sticker strategically placed on his fender that said something like “Visualize World Peace”, or maybe “Keep Austin Weird”.
Most of these ignorant fucks don’t even ride a bike, except on weekends, when the weather is just right….for them it’s a status symbol thing- something to take the place, or be added in addition to their Lexus’, Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches, Armani suits and Louis Vitton purses. Each bike polished to a showroom glitter, right down to the slick tire treatment. Heavy graphics on the tank and fenders, a gazillion dollars worth of chrome and steel. Trailer them to, and trailer them from the event in air conditioned “Wells Cargo” trailers.
The majority of “rally attendees” shouldn’t even attempt to ride iron of this size; instead they should stick to mopeds and little Vespa scooters.
We were staying in the Miramar, hoping to close on a house, so I was keeping the Shadow out in front, under a cover to keep the corrosive night air off of the thing. It’s hard enough to keep it clean and corrosion free when you ride everyday as transportation, and I had to leave it outside the front of the lab, exposed to the sun, sand and salt. All week long people were slowly populating the place as the frenzy of trailerfest got underway. The Miramar went from being a ghost hotel to a fully loaded parking lot for bikes, trailers and designer harleywear yuppies.
On Saturday night we decided to go and check out the Bongo Dogs who were playing one last time down at the Wanna-Wanna. I didn’t want to leave the Shadow parked at the Miramar, with all of the stupidly riding yuppies adjacent to us, so I decided to ride down to the bar, take my chances there. Due to some logistic problems, there was no one to watch the twins, so we decided to take them along with us, D and the girls took the jeep.
The Wanna-Wanna was rocking pretty good, and there were lots of yuppies in glittery steel and leather talking trash and trying to look mean. It was about ninety degrees, so leather is the first thing that gets peeled off when I get done riding. Not so with these folks, it's like a uniform. A sea of writhing sweating zeros some still even wearing their half gloves, cultched tightly around drinks in styrofoam cups, eyeing the vacuous women in halter tops, nipples erect in the hot evening air, excited by the thought of getting banged by someone that's not.
We ran into the Gib and his girlfriend out alongside the joint in the sand, and drank a few rums, and listened to the band from a picnic table in the sand on the beach, watching the show within. Later we migrated under the palapa as the drunken yuppies began to vacate, having had their fill of frozen margaritas and gin and tonics. The girls danced, with tambourines in hand to the approval of Joey Tamayo et al, and after many rumbalibres myself, I even got out on the dance floor, scooting my new big black boots along the floor to the salsa beat of tunes like Cuando la Luna and Aya por Aya. A good time was had by all, and by around twelve fortyfive the Dogs had ceased, and we prepared to go home.
D and the girls loaded up and headed for the house, and I started the Shadow, swinging my leg over the familiar saddle, heading off south down Gulf Boulevard, just enjoying the night air and the soft rumble of the engine. About halfway to the turn, two big old hogs with yuppy riders, complete with “old ladies” on the back blew a stopsign right in front of me, and careened out onto the road. I locked up both brakes, fishtailing for about thirty feet or so. As I swerved around them, I raised the single finger salute and muttered “fucking idiots”. It doesn't bother me if they want to crash their bikes by being stupid....but don't take me out.
The next day, early, before these same sort of jerkoffs were out on the road, I rode the Shadow over here to LV and put it in the garage, where it remained all week while we moved in. I had no desire to mingle with a bunch of wannabes.
On Thursday, long after the last of them left, I fired up the bike, and went for a cruise down the back road, 511. Approaching the bridge over the Resaca at Bayview, I passed a Sporty tooling along from the other direction, a guy with a woman on back. We both saluted, the salute of respect this time.
I’m sure he was glad they were gone too. The road belongs to us again.
The men don leather vests, adorned with many stainless steel chains, baubles and other assorted goodies that they think make them look tough and macho, and the women go braless, or worse yet, wear faux leather (wouldn’t want to offend the PETA members out there). Mostly they cruise up and down Padre Boulevard, a distance of something like three miles, trying to look and sound cool. They go from bar to bar drinking heavily, drinking many pina coladas and manhattans, and for the adventurous, straight shots of rot gut Jose Cuervo tequila. If they get especially lucky maybe their pre-menopausal wives will even lay a bit of pussy on them when they go back to their digs at the Sheraton, Raddison or other condos and hotels which generally are booked to capacity for the event.
The silliest thing I saw during the entire episode was a guy in shorts and Birkenstock sandals riding a fully dressed Road King. I was looking for a bumper sticker strategically placed on his fender that said something like “Visualize World Peace”, or maybe “Keep Austin Weird”.
Most of these ignorant fucks don’t even ride a bike, except on weekends, when the weather is just right….for them it’s a status symbol thing- something to take the place, or be added in addition to their Lexus’, Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches, Armani suits and Louis Vitton purses. Each bike polished to a showroom glitter, right down to the slick tire treatment. Heavy graphics on the tank and fenders, a gazillion dollars worth of chrome and steel. Trailer them to, and trailer them from the event in air conditioned “Wells Cargo” trailers.
The majority of “rally attendees” shouldn’t even attempt to ride iron of this size; instead they should stick to mopeds and little Vespa scooters.
We were staying in the Miramar, hoping to close on a house, so I was keeping the Shadow out in front, under a cover to keep the corrosive night air off of the thing. It’s hard enough to keep it clean and corrosion free when you ride everyday as transportation, and I had to leave it outside the front of the lab, exposed to the sun, sand and salt. All week long people were slowly populating the place as the frenzy of trailerfest got underway. The Miramar went from being a ghost hotel to a fully loaded parking lot for bikes, trailers and designer harleywear yuppies.
On Saturday night we decided to go and check out the Bongo Dogs who were playing one last time down at the Wanna-Wanna. I didn’t want to leave the Shadow parked at the Miramar, with all of the stupidly riding yuppies adjacent to us, so I decided to ride down to the bar, take my chances there. Due to some logistic problems, there was no one to watch the twins, so we decided to take them along with us, D and the girls took the jeep.
The Wanna-Wanna was rocking pretty good, and there were lots of yuppies in glittery steel and leather talking trash and trying to look mean. It was about ninety degrees, so leather is the first thing that gets peeled off when I get done riding. Not so with these folks, it's like a uniform. A sea of writhing sweating zeros some still even wearing their half gloves, cultched tightly around drinks in styrofoam cups, eyeing the vacuous women in halter tops, nipples erect in the hot evening air, excited by the thought of getting banged by someone that's not.
We ran into the Gib and his girlfriend out alongside the joint in the sand, and drank a few rums, and listened to the band from a picnic table in the sand on the beach, watching the show within. Later we migrated under the palapa as the drunken yuppies began to vacate, having had their fill of frozen margaritas and gin and tonics. The girls danced, with tambourines in hand to the approval of Joey Tamayo et al, and after many rumbalibres myself, I even got out on the dance floor, scooting my new big black boots along the floor to the salsa beat of tunes like Cuando la Luna and Aya por Aya. A good time was had by all, and by around twelve fortyfive the Dogs had ceased, and we prepared to go home.
D and the girls loaded up and headed for the house, and I started the Shadow, swinging my leg over the familiar saddle, heading off south down Gulf Boulevard, just enjoying the night air and the soft rumble of the engine. About halfway to the turn, two big old hogs with yuppy riders, complete with “old ladies” on the back blew a stopsign right in front of me, and careened out onto the road. I locked up both brakes, fishtailing for about thirty feet or so. As I swerved around them, I raised the single finger salute and muttered “fucking idiots”. It doesn't bother me if they want to crash their bikes by being stupid....but don't take me out.
The next day, early, before these same sort of jerkoffs were out on the road, I rode the Shadow over here to LV and put it in the garage, where it remained all week while we moved in. I had no desire to mingle with a bunch of wannabes.
On Thursday, long after the last of them left, I fired up the bike, and went for a cruise down the back road, 511. Approaching the bridge over the Resaca at Bayview, I passed a Sporty tooling along from the other direction, a guy with a woman on back. We both saluted, the salute of respect this time.
I’m sure he was glad they were gone too. The road belongs to us again.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Another Clarc-Nap Piece O' Crap
We owned a 1994 Dodge grand caravan which we bought for something like 7500 dollars back in 2000. It was a blue tonk rocket, possessed by the devil. The van was a grand piece of shit from the day we bought it and I should have had my head examined for buying it, but self flagellation does no good now, after the fact.
We had been looking for a van for awhile. D owned a reliable Toyota Corolla when we got married, and we drove it effortlessly, with no problems for hundreds of thousands of miles, until some jerkoff insisted on backing over the hood with his F-350, crushing it like a peanut under the heel of a size 12 boot. We had a Dodge Dakota, which had been my truck, but that’s another story.
Anyway, we figured we needed a van because we had been thinking about taking people on “eco-tours” of the area. That was before we knew what sort of people frequented “eco-tours”. You know the type I’m talking about. Birkenstock wearing, spinach salad eating, Perrier drinking yuppies, with lots of disposable income….unless you happen to be a tour operator. Then they could really give a shit. They always complain that they “paid too much and got too little”, as they look down their thin aquiline Anglo-Saxon noses at you like you’re some sort of servant boy son-of-a-bitch. Maybe throw a little largesse your way before they ride off into the sunset searching for more fun.
I hate used car salesmen too. The fuckers start pushing you right away, as soon as you step on the lot. Like sharks in the water in a frenzy over fresh meat and blood, they broadside you with a smooth line of crap devised to get you to buy a worthless piece of crap, so they can get their daily commission. Lord, give us this day, our daily commish…Fast talking shitpumps, I’m sure there’s a special place in hell for them too. Maybe it’s to be doomed to forever wander the earth, going from used car lot to used car lot, possessing vehicles like that Dodge Caravan, a used car poltergeist, causing the poor bastard buyer years of torture and anguish.
I know better now.
The sansabelt clad, penny loafer wearing, greasebag used car salesman assured us that the vehicle was a 1995, and after a short test drive we decided to buy it. When we started the paperwork though, we discovered that the goddamn thing was NOT a 1995 blue piece of shit van…it was a 1994 blue piece of shit van. The bank had already loaned us the money, so in order to just get on with the whole thing, I insisted that the dealership, Another Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, give us a bumper to bumper, one year warranty. And it was a goddamn good thing I did.
As soon as we brought the blue demon home, we started having trouble with it. First, the front end started making weird noises, clattery ominous noises anytime you went over a bump, like the whole transaxle was going to fall out. We had to take it to a mechanic one cold and rainy night to have the CV joints replaced, an act that caused the dealership to gnash their teeth and threaten not to pay for. This didn't make a bit of difference, the friggin’ thing just kept making more and more noise. Finally, the entire transaxle disintegrated and was changed out, then the noises finally stopped.
Sonn afterward, it started having random starting and idling problems, and would die at intersections when the temperature was hot, not to be coaxed back to life. And when isn’t the temperature hot around here? It took about three months in the shop for them to figure out that it was some sort of computer module. By this time I was getting pretty sick of the van, and of the sleazy dealership, Another Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, whose solution to the whole thing was to sell us another, more expensive Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, so in disgust I just decide that we’d keep the wicked thing. What else could I do? We were already well into the first year of payments, and I figured that we were stuck with this lemon. For the remainder of the year though, I drove around with a sign in the back window that said: “Another Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap”.
Then the warranty ran out.
Just about that time, the sliding door started to fall off at certain times when you opened it up. The track had rotted out at the back end, allowing the front roller on the door to fall through, sending that big heavy bastard slamming into the ground. Then the rear hatch gas struts broke off, and the rear door wouldn’t open up anymore. And then, I got so mad at the damn thing one day, that I slammed the drivers door hard, and the hinges broke, so I shut it, never to be opened again.
Perhaps one of the most excruciating experiences was the serpentine drive belt. It’s a belt about ten feet in diameter, that snakes sinuously around nine pulleys and accessories, driving everything, including the water pump, flywheel, alternator, power steering pump, air conditioning compressor, smog control pump and other things that run with indistinct and occult operations, keeping them all alive and functioning. Around about half of its path, there is little room to even get a finger wedged between the pulleys and the radiator. And it took a fucking schematic to even begin to figure out which pulleys it went over, and which pulleys it went under. If that belt ever comes off, God help you. The vehicle has about ten minutes before everything shuts down.
Whenever water splashed up from below, the serpentine belt would fly off, leaving you just enough time to find the nearest parking lot, or hopefully the nearest taller-mechanico to charge you ten bucks to put it back on. Because if you had to put it back on yourself, oh my god, what a giant nightmare.
We lost the serpentine belt no less than a dozen times over the course of our wretched ownership of the Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap blue van. The most memorable occasion was on the way to Brownsville when an unexpected, sudden turd floater came pouring down. Immediately, and without warning we found ourselves driving through water up to the axles on the tonk rocket. I was praying and cursing at the same time, creeping ahead slowly, hoping to find a place to pull over until the rain stopped and the water receded and dried up a bit when, pow-thud!, the fucking belt disengaged. No power steering, no alternator, no nothing, just a limited amount of time to find a pull over. We finally found a spot in the parking lot of a “Dollar General” store which had become an island, and I set about the task of reinstalling the belt. After about an hour or so, with black grease all the way to my elbows, and everyone around me learning new and unusual curse words and phrases, I finally managed to get the evil belt back on the pulleys, and somehow we managed to clear out of there, miraculously making it home, where I promptly passed out on the sofa with a beer in greasy hand, still mumbling vague and phantom curses at the blue Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap van.
One day, I went to open the hood to check the oil, and the hood latch handle pulled off, the wire just broke, right at the root. So now I had to open up the hood with a pair of needle nosed pliers and a screwdriver, applied just so between the grill and the hood.
Another time the muffler fell off, and I wired it back up with a piece of a coat hanger till I could get home and tig weld the bracket. Soon, the interior began to fall apart too, with random pieces of the dashboard coming loose to ultimately be lost in the vortex of items and other parts, tubes, hoses and belts that we abandoned inside. I had fixed many problems, tig welded the broken door track so that it now worked (somewhat), and even used a broomstick to hold up the rear hatch (because it was impossible to remove the broken pneumatic struts without further damaging the hatch). But every time I chased one problem down, two more would rear their ugly heads. The air conditioner quit, the jump seat broke off, the rear quarter panel fell off…it was a litany of never ending breakdowns and breakoffs. The most recent was the sliding door, a problem which had reappeared in a slightly different form, again. Although it now stayed on the track, it had developed a penchant for tripping the latch, causing it to not shut properly. Each time it pulled this trick, we had to use a screwdriver to pop the latch back open, gently re-shutting the door, holding our breath until we heard the faint telltale click that indicated the door was properly secured.
The final straw came when Kelani broke her arm, and we were rushing her to the hospital. At the emergency room, I swung the sliding door open, and D hurried her inside. Sure enough, when I went to close the sliding door there in the emergency room unloading zone, the damn thing wouldn’t latch. In frustration, I pried up the latch mechanism, and rammed it shut. The door stuck as if welded in place, never to be opened again.
We finally paid off the Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap blue tonk-rocket dodge grand caravan van, and by then, I figured we’d have a helluva hard time selling it, and probably wouldn’t get more than about a hundred dollars trade in value on it, so perversely, I decided to drive the shit out of it until it died, and then maybe just push it unceremoniously into the bay. It certainly didn’t deserve a proper burial.
So, for the remainder of the time that we owned the Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, we all had to pile in and out of the passenger door, a sight I imagine was a bit more than amusing to most folks. I could just hear the comments; “Hey Elvira…did you see those hillbillies in that blue tonk rocket? They all got out of the passenger door! What a piece of shit.”
By now, the van had decided that it wouldn’t simply just die; no it decided that instead, it would just fall apart until nothing was left. That’s when we decided to buy the jeep and I thankfully parked Another Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, hoping that it would just rot away. Soon the tires were flat, and the van was covered in a fine haze of salt spray and sand, out in front of our beach house. Periodically I would start it up, air up the tires and drive around, hoping it would die in front of some rich yuppies house, where I could strip all of the ID off of it and let it become someone else’s problem. No such luck.
We just sold the Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap about six months ago. We got something like 500 bucks for it. We told the guy all of the problems, but he seemed glad to have it, and I sure as hell was glad to see the thing go.
I did hold my breath though, as he was driving off. The sky was heavy with low clouds, and the first sprinkles of rain were spitting from the steely gray. I hoped that he wouldn’t hit any puddles on the causeway.
We had been looking for a van for awhile. D owned a reliable Toyota Corolla when we got married, and we drove it effortlessly, with no problems for hundreds of thousands of miles, until some jerkoff insisted on backing over the hood with his F-350, crushing it like a peanut under the heel of a size 12 boot. We had a Dodge Dakota, which had been my truck, but that’s another story.
Anyway, we figured we needed a van because we had been thinking about taking people on “eco-tours” of the area. That was before we knew what sort of people frequented “eco-tours”. You know the type I’m talking about. Birkenstock wearing, spinach salad eating, Perrier drinking yuppies, with lots of disposable income….unless you happen to be a tour operator. Then they could really give a shit. They always complain that they “paid too much and got too little”, as they look down their thin aquiline Anglo-Saxon noses at you like you’re some sort of servant boy son-of-a-bitch. Maybe throw a little largesse your way before they ride off into the sunset searching for more fun.
I hate used car salesmen too. The fuckers start pushing you right away, as soon as you step on the lot. Like sharks in the water in a frenzy over fresh meat and blood, they broadside you with a smooth line of crap devised to get you to buy a worthless piece of crap, so they can get their daily commission. Lord, give us this day, our daily commish…Fast talking shitpumps, I’m sure there’s a special place in hell for them too. Maybe it’s to be doomed to forever wander the earth, going from used car lot to used car lot, possessing vehicles like that Dodge Caravan, a used car poltergeist, causing the poor bastard buyer years of torture and anguish.
I know better now.
The sansabelt clad, penny loafer wearing, greasebag used car salesman assured us that the vehicle was a 1995, and after a short test drive we decided to buy it. When we started the paperwork though, we discovered that the goddamn thing was NOT a 1995 blue piece of shit van…it was a 1994 blue piece of shit van. The bank had already loaned us the money, so in order to just get on with the whole thing, I insisted that the dealership, Another Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, give us a bumper to bumper, one year warranty. And it was a goddamn good thing I did.
As soon as we brought the blue demon home, we started having trouble with it. First, the front end started making weird noises, clattery ominous noises anytime you went over a bump, like the whole transaxle was going to fall out. We had to take it to a mechanic one cold and rainy night to have the CV joints replaced, an act that caused the dealership to gnash their teeth and threaten not to pay for. This didn't make a bit of difference, the friggin’ thing just kept making more and more noise. Finally, the entire transaxle disintegrated and was changed out, then the noises finally stopped.
Sonn afterward, it started having random starting and idling problems, and would die at intersections when the temperature was hot, not to be coaxed back to life. And when isn’t the temperature hot around here? It took about three months in the shop for them to figure out that it was some sort of computer module. By this time I was getting pretty sick of the van, and of the sleazy dealership, Another Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, whose solution to the whole thing was to sell us another, more expensive Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, so in disgust I just decide that we’d keep the wicked thing. What else could I do? We were already well into the first year of payments, and I figured that we were stuck with this lemon. For the remainder of the year though, I drove around with a sign in the back window that said: “Another Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap”.
Then the warranty ran out.
Just about that time, the sliding door started to fall off at certain times when you opened it up. The track had rotted out at the back end, allowing the front roller on the door to fall through, sending that big heavy bastard slamming into the ground. Then the rear hatch gas struts broke off, and the rear door wouldn’t open up anymore. And then, I got so mad at the damn thing one day, that I slammed the drivers door hard, and the hinges broke, so I shut it, never to be opened again.
Perhaps one of the most excruciating experiences was the serpentine drive belt. It’s a belt about ten feet in diameter, that snakes sinuously around nine pulleys and accessories, driving everything, including the water pump, flywheel, alternator, power steering pump, air conditioning compressor, smog control pump and other things that run with indistinct and occult operations, keeping them all alive and functioning. Around about half of its path, there is little room to even get a finger wedged between the pulleys and the radiator. And it took a fucking schematic to even begin to figure out which pulleys it went over, and which pulleys it went under. If that belt ever comes off, God help you. The vehicle has about ten minutes before everything shuts down.
Whenever water splashed up from below, the serpentine belt would fly off, leaving you just enough time to find the nearest parking lot, or hopefully the nearest taller-mechanico to charge you ten bucks to put it back on. Because if you had to put it back on yourself, oh my god, what a giant nightmare.
We lost the serpentine belt no less than a dozen times over the course of our wretched ownership of the Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap blue van. The most memorable occasion was on the way to Brownsville when an unexpected, sudden turd floater came pouring down. Immediately, and without warning we found ourselves driving through water up to the axles on the tonk rocket. I was praying and cursing at the same time, creeping ahead slowly, hoping to find a place to pull over until the rain stopped and the water receded and dried up a bit when, pow-thud!, the fucking belt disengaged. No power steering, no alternator, no nothing, just a limited amount of time to find a pull over. We finally found a spot in the parking lot of a “Dollar General” store which had become an island, and I set about the task of reinstalling the belt. After about an hour or so, with black grease all the way to my elbows, and everyone around me learning new and unusual curse words and phrases, I finally managed to get the evil belt back on the pulleys, and somehow we managed to clear out of there, miraculously making it home, where I promptly passed out on the sofa with a beer in greasy hand, still mumbling vague and phantom curses at the blue Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap van.
One day, I went to open the hood to check the oil, and the hood latch handle pulled off, the wire just broke, right at the root. So now I had to open up the hood with a pair of needle nosed pliers and a screwdriver, applied just so between the grill and the hood.
Another time the muffler fell off, and I wired it back up with a piece of a coat hanger till I could get home and tig weld the bracket. Soon, the interior began to fall apart too, with random pieces of the dashboard coming loose to ultimately be lost in the vortex of items and other parts, tubes, hoses and belts that we abandoned inside. I had fixed many problems, tig welded the broken door track so that it now worked (somewhat), and even used a broomstick to hold up the rear hatch (because it was impossible to remove the broken pneumatic struts without further damaging the hatch). But every time I chased one problem down, two more would rear their ugly heads. The air conditioner quit, the jump seat broke off, the rear quarter panel fell off…it was a litany of never ending breakdowns and breakoffs. The most recent was the sliding door, a problem which had reappeared in a slightly different form, again. Although it now stayed on the track, it had developed a penchant for tripping the latch, causing it to not shut properly. Each time it pulled this trick, we had to use a screwdriver to pop the latch back open, gently re-shutting the door, holding our breath until we heard the faint telltale click that indicated the door was properly secured.
The final straw came when Kelani broke her arm, and we were rushing her to the hospital. At the emergency room, I swung the sliding door open, and D hurried her inside. Sure enough, when I went to close the sliding door there in the emergency room unloading zone, the damn thing wouldn’t latch. In frustration, I pried up the latch mechanism, and rammed it shut. The door stuck as if welded in place, never to be opened again.
We finally paid off the Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap blue tonk-rocket dodge grand caravan van, and by then, I figured we’d have a helluva hard time selling it, and probably wouldn’t get more than about a hundred dollars trade in value on it, so perversely, I decided to drive the shit out of it until it died, and then maybe just push it unceremoniously into the bay. It certainly didn’t deserve a proper burial.
So, for the remainder of the time that we owned the Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, we all had to pile in and out of the passenger door, a sight I imagine was a bit more than amusing to most folks. I could just hear the comments; “Hey Elvira…did you see those hillbillies in that blue tonk rocket? They all got out of the passenger door! What a piece of shit.”
By now, the van had decided that it wouldn’t simply just die; no it decided that instead, it would just fall apart until nothing was left. That’s when we decided to buy the jeep and I thankfully parked Another Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap, hoping that it would just rot away. Soon the tires were flat, and the van was covered in a fine haze of salt spray and sand, out in front of our beach house. Periodically I would start it up, air up the tires and drive around, hoping it would die in front of some rich yuppies house, where I could strip all of the ID off of it and let it become someone else’s problem. No such luck.
We just sold the Clarc-Nap Piece O’ Crap about six months ago. We got something like 500 bucks for it. We told the guy all of the problems, but he seemed glad to have it, and I sure as hell was glad to see the thing go.
I did hold my breath though, as he was driving off. The sky was heavy with low clouds, and the first sprinkles of rain were spitting from the steely gray. I hoped that he wouldn’t hit any puddles on the causeway.
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