Well this will be an impromptu post as my spectacular thesis regarding the superiority of the original Smokey and the Bandit is at work and I am at home due to a poweroutage which has consumed several blocks of Reston's fine establishment (including my place of employment).
So I will try my best try improvise a suitable proxy. On my way home I noticed a swimmermom/cheermom minivan (far more rare, and exceedingly more dangerous than your run of the mill soccermom minivan). The entire back of the van included a vinyl graphic of what I assume to be their child in full cheerleader regalia (sp?). Just plain spooky. I don't know what it is about swimmermoms and/or cheermoms and their propensity to adorn their vehicles with all sorts of "flare," but my assumption is that it results from their vicarious desire to live through their kids while at the same time embarrass them.
Which brings me to the subject of today's post, the time honored tradition of multitasking parents using their vehicle not only for transportation, but as means for embarrassing their children.
This phenomena is perhaps best illustrated through the case of my sister and our parents 1968 Pontiac Executive Station wagon.
Without a shadow of a doubt, this was the premier vehicle for embarrassing adolescents in the 1980s. Obscenely large, dated in style, adorned with wood veneer, and a fading olive green paint job made this beast a virtual unnatural disaster for any teenager's social status. Fortunately, I was still young in those days(thus oblivious to social status), so I didn't car too much about the car one way or another. I do remember, quite vividly in fact, that the speedometer went to 210 MPH and that when you turned on the hi beams via a kick switch on the floor board, a big a$$ blue indian head lit up on the dash board.
My sister's feelings for the car, however, were no mystery. On the way to the wheaton Ice Skating rink on Friday night, she had asked to be dropped off no less than 3 blocks away from the building. This, of course, prompted my dad to enter the parking lot at 60+ MPH with the horn blaring, coming to a screeching stop smack-dab in front of the building. Even the most rookie economic analyst could figure out the net result was a significant decrease in my sister's coolness stock.
But hey, things could have been worse. We could have been in our ugly car. Yes, believe it or not, the Pontiac was "the looker" of our two family vehicles. Our other car was an orange AMC Gremlin.
As if its heinous looks weren't bad enough, ye olde gremlin was also infested with ants. The car previously belonged to an uncle of mine who cultivated a rather large ant farm. One day, while transporting the farm, something went wrong. Very wrong. Some fat chick in the back seat crushed the farm when my uncle took a turn too fast. Alright, that part I made up. Actually, I don't know as much about how it happened as much as that it did happen. Furthermore, I think that minor detail failed to come to surface until after my parents bought the car and couldn't figure out where all those damn ants were coming from.
1 comment:
my first car was a 1984 dodge minivan, primer gray, with no backseat and no real shocks to speak of.
sweet.
Post a Comment