My poor old car.

This morning I jumped in the beast and ran up to Salt Lake proper to take my friend Sra to the airport.  She asked me to do this favor, and I immediately agreed because I like doing things for my friends, and I enjoy a getting a chance to see people whom I don’t get to see quite enough.  Not only that, but it’s just good sense to be friends with someone who will soon be a rich and powerful lawyer.  It’s a sincere pleasure to be helpful.

Unfortunately, there was a slight glitch, but let me set the stage first: I own a 2001 silver Ford Taurus.  It looks exactly like the other nine hundred million 2001 silver Ford Tauruses that Ford made that year, and it’s been a great car.  I realize that it’s a giant hulking old man-mobile, but it has been dependable and to be honest, it’s a pretty nice car.  It has a good, solid feel and strong craftsmanship, and it’s big and safe and fully paid-off.  Of course, it doesn’t really fit my personality all that well, and I’d love to have something a little more sporty, but it gets the job done.  I can’t really complain too much.

Sadly though, as with all things that are old and not well taken care of, little things are starting to break on occasion.  Something is broken on the rear right-hand strut, which causes an annoying thumping and rattling sound when I run over bumps.  Something leaks out of the tailpipe sometimes, and the car has more than its share of dents and scrapes.  In short, she’s getting up there, and I imagine that a replacement will be needed within a couple of years.

Even so, the old car has been reliable and dependable from a mechanical standpoint.  She’s always started right up no matter the conditions, and she’s never stranded me anywhere.  The Taurus has been the best car I’ve ever owned.  Color me surprised then, when after calling on Sra this morning, and after getting my car all loaded up and ready to head to the airport, the Taurus… wouldn’t start.  The power came on and the dash lit up, but as soon as I turned the key to start, everything went dead.  No power…shit.

Huh?  What the…?  I just drove it here!  I just got out minutes ago!  There were no warning lights, no odd behavior, nothing to indicate the inability of my previously perfectly-running car to start.  Something was wrong.

Being a guy, I naturally popped the hood and stood in front of the car, peering into its innards with what I hope was a thoughtful and ever-knowing look on my face, while secretly saying to myself, “what the hell is that thing?  Maybe that’s the problem!”  I was in the act of jiggling the battery cable thingy when Sra exclaimed from the passenger seat that suddenly power had returned.  I congratulated myself on my vast knowledge of car repair and closed the hood.  Upon entering the car and noting that power had indeed returned, I felt better.  Off to the airport!  I turned the key to start, and… everything went dead.  No power… shit.

Sra needed to catch her flight, so we ended up taking her car.  We got to the terminal and said our goodbyes, and I drove her car back to her apartment.  She was awesome, by the way.  I was all worried and angry and I felt let down and betrayed by my car, but Sra was ever the best friend and told me I could use her car to hit up Autozone or wherever I needed to go to get things fixed up.  She’s truly the best!  After I parked her car in its assigned spot at her place, I once again popped the hood on my own conveyance and resumed the Thoughtful Face.  I jiggled the battery cable some more, and lo and behold… power!  I got in, turned the key, and… everything went dead.  No power, shit.

After doing this several more times, it dawned on me that the battery obviously wasn’t the culprit.  I sat there for a while, thinking about what I could do and cursing over the vast amounts of money it would cost me.  I got the idea that maybe I could get the car rolling down the hill [note:  All of Utah is on a hill, and usually downhill, unless you’re carrying something heavy or really tired, then it’s uphill], and maybe I could muscle it around the corner so a wrecker could come and get it and take all of my money.  This was a daunting prospect though, because there was a car parked directly in front of me, and I would have had to literally push a ton-and-a-half car uphill for a bit by myself, and then crank the wheel enough to miss the car ahead of me, then jump in and coast it down to the corner.  Not a happy thought.  I managed to get the front wheels straightened out, then I jumped out to close the hood.  On a whim, I decided to give the battery cable one more juggle, just for the hell of it, then I got back in the car just to see.  Maybe the 741st time is the charm, you know?  I turned the key to start, and… she started right up.

I’ve always been told that when you park on a hill, you turn the wheels inward, and set the parking brake.  Of course, when you own a 2001 silver Ford Taurus, this apparently isn’t the case.  From what I can tell, my best guess with what was wrong with my car had something to do with the angle it was parked on the hill, and the angle my wheels were turned.  Once I straightened them out, the car started just fine.  It has continued to start just fine ever since, every time, with no warning lights or indication that anything was ever wrong.  I’m rather speechless.  Has anyone ever heard of this?  I hope Sra isn’t too mad or disappointed in me.  It was truly an embarrassing moment that I hope never to repeat.

I guess the lesson learned is, don’t park on hills.  And if you do park on hills, leave the wheels pointing straight ahead.  I suppose I’ll know better next time, when I bring you more annoying Tales from a Ford Taurus!

I drive a silver Ford Taurus. It is exactly like the other 29,574,282 silver Ford Tauruses that Ford made in the year 2001. So much so, that it’s quite common to see silver Ford Taurus owners milling about parking lots, trying to enter several cars thinking that it’s their own. I’m guilty of this myself, in fact. All I can say in my defense is that the car was a choice of practicality over expense.

At the time of the purchase, I was looking to buy the new Mazda 6. It had just come out, in 2003 I believe, and I saw one and liked it, so I zoom zoomed over to the local dealer for a test drive. Loved the car, hated the price. At the same time, I made a few parking lot drive-bys of a local Ford dealership looking for a deal. In the end, it came down to a brand new $30,000 car, or a two year-old $10,000 car. I opted for the practical route, and although having the new flashy car would have been cool, the Taurus is now completely paid off and still runs great. I made the right decision. Maybe…

The car is affectionately referred to as the Oldmanmobile, a reference to the fact that a giant family sedan with significant body roll and very conservative appearance is not really the chick magnet car that a 30-something single guy flaunts. It’s also not very descriptive of my personality, at least not that I think. It is, however, very dependable. It gets OKish gas mileage and has no major mechanical defects, despite the fact that it will likely turn over 100K this year. It’s easy and cheap to insure and has enough power to motor up and down the mountains without too much effort. And it’s big enough to score big pedestrian points without suffering too much damage should I go road-rage postal and decide that those missionaries and that old lady are SO not crossing in front of me today. Ha HA! Not that I would ever actually do that. Of course.

Even so, why is it that others don’t respect my property? I know my car isn’t a shiny new pearl, but it’s not a haggard old beast either. The disrespect and common stupidity that people demonstrate is abhorrent. Case in point:

This wonderful scrape mark, which is actually quite large and not really depicted well in the picture, was courtesy of my old neighbor Steve. Steve was a huge, fat, disgusting 400lb piece of shit dumbass who did nothing useful with himself except drink beer and cavort loudly on his balcony at all times of the year. Did I mention he lived directly above me? Do you know what it’s like to have a 400lb man live on the floor above you? Even in the deadest of winter, you could find fat Steve sitting outside on his balcony at 3 in the morning, belching along to his hee haw country station, stopping only to take a quick jaunt over to the 7-11 nearby to pick up another case of Milwaukee’s Beast. Fat Steve was kind enough that when he finally got evicted, he managed to hit my car (in the next stall over) with his U-Haul trailer as he pulled out, making the scrape you see here. I only noticed it later in the day as I prepared to leave for work. Had I caught fat Steve in this little deal, I’d have broken his legs and shoved that U-Haul trailer up his ass. I’m sure it would have fit with room to spare.

This second dent is only a couple days old. I came out of a Home Depot to find this lovely bit of wanton destruction waiting for me. Obviously, some careless person or their evil spawn opened a car door into my passenger side. This sort of thing happens sometimes, but what struck me was the effort that must have been put into it. This is no ordinary door ding. This is a massive dent right in the reinforced part of the door. Someone really had to take a good back swing and put some force into this one. Again, had I caught the perpetrator, violence could quite possibly have ensued.

Of course, it’s not their car that got smashed. Had it been their car, they’d have been pissed off. Probably wanted to have a chat with the guilty party, or at the VERY LEAST, a small note with an apology. “Dear person: I’m sorry that I’m a huge waste of perfectly good breathable oxygen and a burden to the intelligent people of the world, but I unfortunately let little Timmy open the door to my 2008 Cadillac Escalade too swiftly and he’s put a small scratch on the door of your… um, silver car old thingy. Please accept my humble apologies, and rest assured that Timmy will get a stern look from his father someday.”

If only that were reality. Alas, it is not.  No respect for other people’s property.