“Come on, GeekMan! Let’s burn rubber!”
“Yeah! Let’s peel out!”
“Go GeekMan, go!”
“Just like Pole Position, man! ‘Prepare to qualify!’”
I was 20 years old and my friends and I were waiting for my teeny-tiny, four-speed, Dodge Omni to warm up as we sat in the parking lot of the mall after seeing some action-packed, thrill ride of a movie. Caught up in the excitement of the moment, and possessing far less than my fair share of college brain cells, I decided that I would grant my friends’ request because peeling out of the lot would be lots of fun. Besides, my friends wanted to do something crazy and wasn’t I the coolest and craziest sumbitch on the planet?
Damn straight I was.
I looked in front of my car and saw nothing but an empty lot as far as the eye could see. I checked out the rear view mirror and was surprised to see no one there either. I guess going to the late, late show at the theater was good for something after all.
I revved the engine like a stock car racer and gave my friends an evil grin.
It was at that moment that a little light bulb of ingenuity stupidity went off in my head. If peeling out while going forward was thrilling and exciting, I thought to myself, then wouldn’t going in reverse be an even bigger thrill? My friends would never expect me to do that so my ‘crazy-cool’ quotient would go up another notch, making me super ‘crazy-cool’ and thereby irresistible to women. A quick daydream involving myself, the redheaded beauty down the hall and the blonde twins in my theater class followed.
I had a vivid, if slightly unrealistic, imagination.
Throwing caution and common sense to the wind, I threw the car into reverse and stomped on the gas. Rubber melted, my friends screamed in delight and we took off at over 50mph
Backwards.
Let me take a moment now to reiterate that I didn’t see anyone else anywhere in the lot. As far as I could tell, the place was empty and I really did check my rearview mirror.
Twice.
However, I must have had a blind spot because I somehow didn’t notice the huge 4-door, 1984 Cutlass Supreme parked two rows behind me. I also didn’t notice the two high school teenagers, obviously on their first date, making out inside.
I hit them midway between the front and rear doors on the passenger side. Hard.
When the police arrived on the scene half an hour later, they were amazed to find the Oldsmobile nearly folded in half and completely unsalvageable and my tiny, pathetic Dodge Omni with nothing more than a slightly scuffed paintjob. That’s right, my car kicked their car’s ass. Amazingly, no one was hurt, no one was arrested and miraculously, the kids’ fathers never pressed charges against me.
I wonder if those kids ever had a second date?
Anywaste, all I got was a $200 ticket for reckless driving and a stern warning from the officers to watch out when backing up in the future. I told them how sorry I was and then tried to make light of the situation by asking them to put me out of my misery and shoot me.
The officers were not amused.
Quickly thanking them and beating a hasty retreat, my friends and I got into my Omni-potent Dodge and began the drive back to campus, slowly and safely. Because we were hungry after our exciting ordeal, we couldn’t resist stopping at a nearby Denny’s for a Grand Slam to talk about our exciting evening. It was there at Denny’s that my evening morphed from a simple bad day into a truly legendary night of torturous horror.
I got locked out of the car.
But that’s not all. Oh no, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? You see, not only did I accidentally lock the car keys inside the car, but the same officers from my earlier accident showed up to help me get back inside. I was forced to endure 40 minutes of alcohol and drug testing right there in the parking lot of Denny’s, all the while explaining that I was just a stupid moron and not high or drunk. After they got the door open I didn’t ask them to shoot me, because I was afraid that this time they really would.
In fact, I’m sure they would have.
After that night, my friends no longer considered me ‘crazy-cool’; they just considered me a ‘psychotic-lunatic’. And after this story made the campus rounds, the twins would huddle together and whisper anytime that I dared to approach. And I never even found out the name of the cute redhead down the hall.
I really miss that car.
So: did the car have a name?
People keep asking me if my car has a name. It doesn’t. It has plenty of personality, but is not anthropomorphised so much. But. Your car… sounds like a Christine.
No, no, definitely a Veronica. She was a Bad Girl.
Her name was Helen, and she was named by my friends after another friend of mine. The car was so named because it was small and yellow, just like Helen. Also, it was missing the rear bumper and so had no ass.
Just like Helen.
I am such a dead man if she ever reads this.
oh dear… now that was strangely amusing… ;-)