A Lo-Carb Dyke In A Sugar-Coated World (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fuzzybutchkins) wrote,@ 2006-01-03 21:48:00 |
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Rhonda
Written for Blogging 4 Books, introduced to me bytrinapink
I remember sitting in the café area of a supermarket just North of Delaware, adrenalin fading and feeling tired and empty. It was August in Pennsylvania, the muggy heat just beginning to dissipate as the sun was starting to set. I was returning from my first real attempt at bookscouting – a polite term for cannibalizing the dying carcass of a book distributor who’d gone bankrupt. I’d been reasonably successful, finding some profitable books and meeting a professional second-market media seller who worked hard to instill the popper sense of cynicism bitterness in me about my new endeavor.
The traffic was heavy on the way back, normal for that time of day. I may not have been paying quite as much attention to the road as I should have, and the car in front of me stopped short. I stopped short. The SUV behind me wasn’t so lucky, and I watched him plow into me. I lurched forward and smashed into the car in front of me. All of my stuff exploded around me, and I remember clearly how odd it felt to feel the drivers seat flop forward the way it did. I remembered to pull the keys out of the ignition, like you should after an accident, and it occurred to me suddenly.
Rhonda was dead.
It was a low speed accident, and the airbags hadn’t even deployed. The car ahead of me had lost two clips from the license plate, and the car behind me dropped its gold Chevy emblem from the grill, and it was sitting obscenely on my rear bumper… on Rhonda’s…
Yeah, ok, Rhonda was the car. No amount of melodrama will mask that fact forever. But Rhonda wasn’t just any car. She was my first.
And she was a hell of a nice car for a first car, too. I bought her in 2002, a 1999 burgundy Ford Taurus. Not the sexiest of cars, sure, but she had great curves and a big engine and drove like a dream on highways. She had 25,000 miles on her or so, and all of the standard doodads you’d expect of a middle-market sedan of that year.
Rhonda was named after Rhonda Flemming, the beautiful red-headed star of stage and screen in the earlier part of the 20th century. The only good reason I can give for that name is that the car was red and curvy. It also gave the opportunity to hum the Beach Boys “Help Me Rhonda” if ever I needed a little car karma in an emergency.
At 21, I was very old to be suburban girl buying my first car, but considering that I’d waited until an ancient 21 to get my driver’s license, I was used to being behind the curve. I’d saved my money for the down payment and completely avoided the two traps of young car ownership: beaters and econo-boxes. It was a proud moment when I drove Rhonda off the lot that day.
I drove Rhonda all over the East coast, and she really improves my sex life, inasmuch as she allowed me to properly have one for the first time. I drove all across creation in search of sex, visiting friends, girlfriends, lovers, and orgies in The Zone. Rhonda let me finally take the somewhat better paying jobs in neighborhoods inaccessible or impractical to public transit, so I could date a better class of girl… like the kind that liked to be taken out to restaurants nicer than Taco Bell. I might still be a virgin today if it weren’t for that car.
She wasn’t perfect, certainly… another place at another time, she would have been a lemon. I made good friends with my local dealership mechanics, coming in about once every two months with a new catastrophic failure. The heating system melted, the core electrical cluster fried, the break rotors were as smooth as Carrot Top, and the windshield wipers crapped out during a thunderstorm. The unkindest cut of all was head gasket blowing on Christmas night, driving home from yearly family pig out, stranding me at a Wawa and destroying the entire engine.
I was too stupid to know that it should have been a Love/Hate relationship, but for all of her eccentricities, breakdowns and hopelessly sensible profile, Rhonda had The Warranty. Being such historically reliable cars, for a mere $900 more at the time of sale I got a little card that let me get everything on that car fixed for 50 bucks a shot, and it was without a doubt the smartest purchase I've ever made. It was like a little super hero in my pocket. Engine smoking? The Warranty will fix it! Oil pan get shattered while 4-wheeling through the forest trying to find a decent spot to camp? Warranty to the rescue! Is there a strange clanking noise when you drive over 50 miles an hour and Mercury is in retrograde? Warranty saves the day!
I fully expected to drive that car until it fell apart. Such was not to be the case, unfortunately, and one day she was rear-ended and folded in at both ends. She did keep me safe, though, and ultimately I suppose that was her job, but you’ll never convince me that she needed to give her life in the process. I moved on and got another car with the insurance money… a 2002 green Chevy Malibu that’s been much more reliable, had fewer miles, and a better warranty. But it doesn’t drive as nicely. The engine is supposed to be bigger and have more horsepower, but it doesn’t go as fast. The handling isn’t as nice as Rhonda’s. And it’s never told me its name.
You’ll be missed, Rhonda.
Written for Blogging 4 Books, introduced to me by
trinapinkI remember sitting in the café area of a supermarket just North of Delaware, adrenalin fading and feeling tired and empty. It was August in Pennsylvania, the muggy heat just beginning to dissipate as the sun was starting to set. I was returning from my first real attempt at bookscouting – a polite term for cannibalizing the dying carcass of a book distributor who’d gone bankrupt. I’d been reasonably successful, finding some profitable books and meeting a professional second-market media seller who worked hard to instill the popper sense of cynicism bitterness in me about my new endeavor.
The traffic was heavy on the way back, normal for that time of day. I may not have been paying quite as much attention to the road as I should have, and the car in front of me stopped short. I stopped short. The SUV behind me wasn’t so lucky, and I watched him plow into me. I lurched forward and smashed into the car in front of me. All of my stuff exploded around me, and I remember clearly how odd it felt to feel the drivers seat flop forward the way it did. I remembered to pull the keys out of the ignition, like you should after an accident, and it occurred to me suddenly.
Rhonda was dead.
It was a low speed accident, and the airbags hadn’t even deployed. The car ahead of me had lost two clips from the license plate, and the car behind me dropped its gold Chevy emblem from the grill, and it was sitting obscenely on my rear bumper… on Rhonda’s…
Yeah, ok, Rhonda was the car. No amount of melodrama will mask that fact forever. But Rhonda wasn’t just any car. She was my first.
And she was a hell of a nice car for a first car, too. I bought her in 2002, a 1999 burgundy Ford Taurus. Not the sexiest of cars, sure, but she had great curves and a big engine and drove like a dream on highways. She had 25,000 miles on her or so, and all of the standard doodads you’d expect of a middle-market sedan of that year.
Rhonda was named after Rhonda Flemming, the beautiful red-headed star of stage and screen in the earlier part of the 20th century. The only good reason I can give for that name is that the car was red and curvy. It also gave the opportunity to hum the Beach Boys “Help Me Rhonda” if ever I needed a little car karma in an emergency.
At 21, I was very old to be suburban girl buying my first car, but considering that I’d waited until an ancient 21 to get my driver’s license, I was used to being behind the curve. I’d saved my money for the down payment and completely avoided the two traps of young car ownership: beaters and econo-boxes. It was a proud moment when I drove Rhonda off the lot that day.
I drove Rhonda all over the East coast, and she really improves my sex life, inasmuch as she allowed me to properly have one for the first time. I drove all across creation in search of sex, visiting friends, girlfriends, lovers, and orgies in The Zone. Rhonda let me finally take the somewhat better paying jobs in neighborhoods inaccessible or impractical to public transit, so I could date a better class of girl… like the kind that liked to be taken out to restaurants nicer than Taco Bell. I might still be a virgin today if it weren’t for that car.
She wasn’t perfect, certainly… another place at another time, she would have been a lemon. I made good friends with my local dealership mechanics, coming in about once every two months with a new catastrophic failure. The heating system melted, the core electrical cluster fried, the break rotors were as smooth as Carrot Top, and the windshield wipers crapped out during a thunderstorm. The unkindest cut of all was head gasket blowing on Christmas night, driving home from yearly family pig out, stranding me at a Wawa and destroying the entire engine.
I was too stupid to know that it should have been a Love/Hate relationship, but for all of her eccentricities, breakdowns and hopelessly sensible profile, Rhonda had The Warranty. Being such historically reliable cars, for a mere $900 more at the time of sale I got a little card that let me get everything on that car fixed for 50 bucks a shot, and it was without a doubt the smartest purchase I've ever made. It was like a little super hero in my pocket. Engine smoking? The Warranty will fix it! Oil pan get shattered while 4-wheeling through the forest trying to find a decent spot to camp? Warranty to the rescue! Is there a strange clanking noise when you drive over 50 miles an hour and Mercury is in retrograde? Warranty saves the day!
I fully expected to drive that car until it fell apart. Such was not to be the case, unfortunately, and one day she was rear-ended and folded in at both ends. She did keep me safe, though, and ultimately I suppose that was her job, but you’ll never convince me that she needed to give her life in the process. I moved on and got another car with the insurance money… a 2002 green Chevy Malibu that’s been much more reliable, had fewer miles, and a better warranty. But it doesn’t drive as nicely. The engine is supposed to be bigger and have more horsepower, but it doesn’t go as fast. The handling isn’t as nice as Rhonda’s. And it’s never told me its name.
You’ll be missed, Rhonda.
