Cars and Me Don't Mix

8/14/2019 Cars and Me Don't Mix

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My first experience was when I was too young to see over the steering wheel. Iwas at my grandpa’s house getting ready to leave. I had finished saying my goodbyes andI went and jumped in the car. The car was a 68 Ford Galaxy. If you don’t know muchabout cars just picture a small tank with two bench seats and six lap style seat belts.

It was a beast. My side of the car was

locked so I hopped in the driver’s seat.My mom was still at the door with my brother. I started to mess around with thesteering wheel like most little kids do.This old car was an automatic and theshifter thing was a lever right behind thesteering wheel. During my high speed

hallucination I grabbed it and slid it into neutral. The car was sitting at the top of thedriveway which was at a wicked slope and emptied onto a busy street. The car started toroll backwards, and I started to freak out. The steering wheel locked. I couldn’t reach the pedals or see over the wheel. What I could see through the driver side window was my

grandfather running after me at full speed down the driveway. He got to the door andthrew it open, pushed me aside, and stood on the brakes. You had to hit’em hard becausewithout the car running the brakes had almost no power. With only a few feet to spare thecar came to a halt. I was 5 or 6. Looking back on that event it doesn’t make any sense.There’s no way I should have been able to get the car out of park without the key in theignition. Maybe this whole time and all the accidents to fallow have been divineintervention from that point. Guess I’ll find out sooner or later.

My second encounter with vehicular destruction came at the hands of an ATV. Iwas at a family get together and my cousin and I went for a ride. We were both on our own 4-wheelers. My cousin’s house was in Valley Center California. The town consistsof an Indian reservation and orange groves for miles. Each house was sat on an acre or

two. For a long time we always had our family gettogether’s at his house because it was the biggest. Ihave a lot of real fond memories with my cousin Keith, but people grow up, and apart sometimes. Out in frontof his house was the dirt road you had to go down toget there. It was barely big enough to fit two cars down but that was never a problem because you never sawany other cars. About a half mile down that road itstarted to slope up making a big hill. On this particular

occasion my cousin’s driveway was under construction and there wasn’t enough room for all the cars. One of my aunts decides to park her new Mercedes half way into the road. Naturally me and my cousin decide to play chicken with the gap between my auntsMercedes and the grove of orange trees. Me and my cousin were very competitive. Weride up to the top of the hill and line up. Ready, GO! I’ll take this moment to say that thiswas my first time on a Quad. We race down, and for a while we were neck and neck untilhe pulls ahead. He beats me through by three lengths. As soon as he’s through my other cousin jumps into the gap and yells “it’s my turn, I wanna ride!” time slows down to acrawl. In about three seconds this is what goes through my head. Fuck! Where’s the

brake! That’s not the brake! Am I speeding up? Shit I shifted! Where’s the brake?! Too



late, where do I go? Car, trees, cousin, car, trees, cousin? Fuck it, car! SLAM!! I hit thecar doing about thirty. I hit it right in the middle of the driver’s side door. The door takesthe shape of tin foil if you were to wrap it around a soda can. There are no belts on a 4-wheeler so I slide forward and the handle bars catch me straight across the top of mystomach knocking the wind out of me. As my body folds around the handle bars my

crotch hits the vertical part that the handle bars are mounted on. After that the momentumcarries my body over the handle bars and my head (yes I was wearing a helmet) crashesthrough the driver’s side window. Glass explodes both into the car, and out onto me. Ihave a scar on the back of my right wrist from that. The window breaks my momentumand I slide back onto the seat and gasp for air. My family hears the crash and comesrunning out. They pull me off the quad and lay me on the ground. They take off myhelmet and tell me to relax and breath. They pull up my shirt and I have a huge black bruise forming where the handlebars hit me. They roll back the quad and pry the door tothe car open. The driver’s seat had been pushed back about 3 inches cracking the center console. Not to mention the entire inside was covered in shattered glass. The quad wasfine though due to the steel grill on the front of it. Never do anything half ass, I always

say. I was 10 or 11.I’m in high school now and my friend Joe gets his first car. It’s an ugly brownVolvo station wagon. He had it for about three weeks before we found out that it had skid plates under the engine to protect the vital parts and a roll cage over the front two seats.We were all big off road junkies back then so once we found out what kind of hardwarethe Volvo was packing, it was all over. One of our friends had just got a new Chevy S10and wanted to go off roading at this new place he found to show it off. Of coursewe were down. But since the only other guy that had a truck was going to ride inthe S10, my friend suggested we take hisVolvo. He also suggested that since hehad never driven off road that I drive(strike one). Truth is I’m a great driver, I just have bad luck with cars. After wehad been drinking awhile we left to go tothis off road place. On the way we stop by some girl’s house and get stoned. Soit’s around one or two in the morningand we’re drunk and stoned now (strikes two and three). From there we go to the place.It’s a huge hill with trees and bushes all around the bottom. The top off the hill lookedlike it had been chopped off, probably prep work for the construction that would later result in houses being built there. The whole trail was about two miles long and split andforked and wrapped around the hill. Once we got to the top the S10 we were followingdid some doughnuts. “Not bad” I said. Then I did the same thing only mine were tighter and my left front tire seemed to never move, like we were just pivoting around it. That pissed off the S10 and he took off down the hill. We gave chase. On the way up the hillthe truck of course could go as fast as he wanted because he had a couple feet of clearance off the ground. The Volvo was practically sitting on the ground so we werevery careful to not get stuck in any holes or run over any big rocks. Going down the hill



now was a match to see just how well I could keep up with the truck. The trails weren’tflat by any means and by the time we reached the bottom dirt had piled in the openwindows and the muffler had broken off the mounts and was dragging on the ground behind us. Things like that were no big deal to us because we could fix them in auto shopon Monday. For the time being we took some chain, strapped that sucker back up and

kept going. We were on our way out and all the sudden we see the truck bounce up andthen disappear. I slammed on the brakes and we got out too see what happened. Turns outthere was a huge jump that had gone unnoticed. The S10 was ok and now they wereegging us on to do the same thing in the Volvo. It didn’t take much convincing and wewere off. We launched off the jump and came down about seven feet to land on flatground. The sound was like taking a bag of aluminum cans and slamming them upagainst a wall. It didn’t feel too good either but at least we got it on camera and we werestill tied if not beating the truck in performance. After that we decided to call it a night. Itwas 3:00am and we had two more days of weekend ahead. My friend that had rid in thetruck hopped in his car and me and Joe stayed in the Volvo and fallowed him home. Joewas asleep in the passenger seat and I was driving still. In between Vista and Oceanside

California there’s a winding stretch of road a quarter mile long that’s never been paved because neither city knows who’s it is and wants to pay. So for us it’s a time track to seewho can make it through the fastest. Against all odds we were off. Joe and I were blazingaround those corners about to set a new record when the car fishtailed out of controlaround a corner and I was forced with a decision. I couldn’t bring the car back under control but I could guide it in a general direction long enough for it to slow down enoughto correct it. Left or right? To the left was a 12 foot drop into a state park and wildlifereserve, to the right, a dirt embankment. Right it was, so I jerk the wheel and we slaminto the burm. I didn’t realize how fast we were going. The right front corner of the car hit first lifting it into the air, and then the rest of the car fallowed sending it into acorkscrew roll. I don’t remember why but I couldn’t close my eyes. While the car wasupside down the roof was still about six inches off the ground. It wasn’t till the car wassideways again that the passenger side corner of the roof hit. The force of the impact blasted out 3 windows allowing the dirt cloud outside to fill the car. It also slowed therotation down just enough so that the car came to rest back on the tires in the middle of the street like nothing had happened. The car had turned off sometime during all this. Icould tell because the Bob Marley tape was not playing anymore and we couldn’t have been more than a third of the way through side B. I took the keys out of the ignition andwe both got out too observe the damage. The dust was starting to settle. We looked ateach other, then at ourselves. Not a scratch. Not a bruise. Couldn’t say the same for thecar. It was to dark to survey the damage so we pushed it off to the side and went home.We came back the next morning at 7:00am to survey the damage. The left front tire hadexploded on impact with the ground. Three windows were shattered. The muffler was back on the ground. The right corner if the roof was 5 inches lower than the rest and thewindshield in that corner had huge spider web cracks extending out. The hood latch was broken and we had to prey it open. The radiator had broken off the mounts and wasresting on the fan. The left headlight was hanging out. Where the exhaust connects to theengine had cracked along the wield so the exhaust was doing no good. There was chunksof shattered glass all over the inside of the car and the trunk wouldn’t latch shut. Wefixed what we could on the spot with zip-ties and duct tape and drove it home. We rode



around in it for about three or four weeks then the transmission started to give out. Itsounded like a serial killer with a chainsaw was coming through the floor. As bad as thecar looked and sounded it was amazing to everyone that Joe and I came out unscathed.We were famous at school the day we showed up with it to auto shop. People I didn’teven know were asking if I was the guy that rolled that other guy’s car. He sold it to his

cousin. I was 17 and had no license. He told his parents he was driving. Next to fall victim was the first car I owned. It cost me $200 and it was worthevery penny. It was an old blue Chevy something or other. Anyways I had just picked up

my girlfriend and we were on our way back tomy house. To get there we had to go up thishuge hill. We get almost to the top and the car starts making this funny sound. Like agrinding sound. I start to pull off to the side of the road. Next thing I know, there’s anexplosion under the hood and the cab is fullof black smoke. Power steering is gone and

the windows don’t roll down because thereelectric and the car is now off and I feel thecar hit the curb and start to slow. I yell toopen the doors and I stop the car. We both get

out and I step into a river of oil. The oil pan is in the middle of the street. I walk around tothe curb and ask my date if she’s ok. She’s fine and I look at the car and notice that I’mstopped in a red zone. Shit man! What else could go wrong? (Never say that). Some guysthat live in the apartments across the street saw the whole thing and are on there way over to lend a hand. The hill had to be a 45 degree angle and these three huge guys help me push it about 40 feet to the normal curb. I thank the gentlemen and me and my date startwalking. It’s about a mile to my house and she’s wearing high heels. Well, she waswearing high heels for a while till one broke. Then she was barefoot. We get to my houseand I tell my dad what happened. We get the truck, a 97 Ford Ranger, and go tow the piece of shit car back to the house. The next day I called Ecology Auto Wrecking andthey came and picked up the car and paid me $275 bucks for it. Not a bad turnover. I was18.



Next was the FordRanger. I bought it off mydad but not with money. Ihad to go back to school andget my diploma. Which I did,

so it was mine. Thedestruction of this truck didn’t come all at once, no, itcame over a year and a half period. I loved that truck. Thefinal blow however came atthe hands of a ChevySilverado. I was making a u-turn and this guy on his cell phone going 50mph in a 35 t- bone’s me on my driver side. The impact crater was from the middle of my driver sidedoor back to the beginning of my wheel well. It only dented in about 5 inches, but it wasenough to rip the entire front of his truck off. I started mine up and drove it off to the side

of the road. He was stuck in the middle. I had no insurance and a sack of weed in my pocket when the cops showed up. So I gave him some bogus info and told him I justhadn’t got my cards yet because I recently switched my provider. The other guy had histruck towed away and I drove my own away. The damage didn’t seem too bad at thetime. Until I went to fill my gas tank. He hit me right in the place where my gas nozzlegoes. The angle was so extreme that I couldn’t get the nozzle in far enough in to start pumping the gas. Instead I had to disconnect the hose to the tank from the port, reach back behind the body of the car through the wheel well, pull the tube to the gas tank down, and bring the gas nozzle down behind the wheel well. The whole time pushing thetwo together. Aside from looking ridiculous and being extremely uncomfortable, thenozzle wouldn’t shut off at the right time like they normally do. Instead gas would comespewing out all over your hands and that’s how you knew you were done. A few weekslater I noticed a faint grinding sound coming from underneath somewhere. I would hear it, and then it would go away. After a month it got louder and louder. I found out a toothfrom one of the gears in the transmission had broken off and was floating around in thereslowly ripping everything apart. Then I found out that to replace the transmission witheither a new or used one, would cost more than the truck was worth, even before theaccident. So I called ecology again and $150 later the truck was gone. The other guy’sinsurance company found that we were both at fault somehow and since both our carswere totaled, we had to pay each other half of what they other guys truck was worth. He paid me $1500 and I had to pay him $6000. His was new. I didn’t have a real job at thetime so I didn’t have the money. Long story short, it went to collections where I haggledthem down to $3000 and paid it off in a year. I was 19.

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk intoan open sewer and die."

Mel Brooks

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Cars and Me Don't Mix