Car Counseling...

A girl I have known used to drive a 1972 Chevelle convertible. One night, after partying it up in Matunuck, she let me drive it home. I fell in love with convertibles right there. I had no idea of the freedom, relaxation and complete mind set change that comes over you when you drive one.

Not too long after I have bought my own car, with my own money, a 1983 Dodge 400 convertible. It was used, had some problems but to me it was mint and mine. I now owned a convertible. I drove that thing incessantly all over. Some of the nicer rides were always at night, coming home from the beach or say taking the loop ride around the Scituate reservoir. The freedom, gratification I got from it cannot be underestimated. I loved it. I managed to turn into a beach bum with it and found out being a beach bum was a great career, while the summer lasted of course. 

 My Love Affair

Have high blood pressure? Drive a convertible. You won't care if you are stuck in traffic, really, you won't.

Being a young man with my new toy, I also loved to work on it, take care of it, use old fashioned carnauba wax on the body. I ripped out the old radio and had a decent one installed. I put on a leather steering wheel cover. I had no problem jacking it up to change out the oil, shocks, springs...you name it. I got pretty talented at being a mechanic on this particular model. I even vacuumed it out.

Funny things happen as you age though. I was about 32 when the car needed a new exhaust system. No biggie, I've done that before so I was experienced with it. The problem arose where I had to change it out in the middle of January. There was a good foot of compacted snow still all around and I had to lay down an old dirty blanket to provide me with some barrier to it. As I cut away the old exhaust with a cutting wheel, the vibration shook off snow, ice and goo that fell down into my neck where the grungy army field jacket was open. Ugh. That an slipping a few hundred times was fun too. A few years earlier, I had been out there swapping out a catalytic converter during a blasting cold front that was coming through. My fingers moved slowly as they were being frost bitten but I didn't care. I enjoyed it.

This time around at 32 I was grumbling. As time went by my desire to do my own work on the car faded. I began to do what a lot of others do, ignore parts that were failing, oil changes, brake pad checks...the more time I could spend inside during winter was much more enjoyable than lying on my back in the driveway bitching about the cold.

There was a time when I needed shocks all around for the car. I studied the problem, realized I could do it myself but another part of me says, “Ahh...you hate working on cars..hire someone to do it.” So I did.

I haven't worked on a car in years unless I was cornered to do so. Sure, I bitch about the price mechanics charge but so far, no estimate mentioned to me has yet changed my mine. I'd rather sleep a bit later and have them call up and say, “It's magically fixed! Come and get it!”

Even this though, has a limit, being the tight fisted Yankee I am. There comes a point in a car's life when I say, “Sorry...time to put you down!” Hell, I'm too cheap to do even do that, put a car out of it's misery. I drive the thing, loaded with cancer and other terminal problems right into it's grave, screaming in pain the whole time. If there's a car abuse law, I'm the biggest violator of that.

To me, it's simple economics. Machines don't last forever, they break down more frequently and with greater, more expensive problems as they age. So I drive the needy, desperate thing till it coughs it's last cough. Squeeze it like a sponge.

Something clicks in me as cars age, as they start to break here and there, little things...just slightly annoying things. I ignore those tiny problems as they don't effect the overall performance. Well, ratchet that mentality up the scale and I can ignore even larger problems to the point where I diagnose the car as “Oh, I see no hope for recovery..better pull the plug!”

I have been told by more than a few, lectured at and have had my balls busted that if I just took care of the car, it would last longer. True. There's an argument for that. What I do take care of, I have to love first. My stereo system acts up and I act like a Mother hearing her infant sneeze. I tender dear care upon it till I diagnose the problem and fix it properly. This computer I built acting funny? I can spend an afternoon hunting down a problem and clear it. I'll tweak a stock chart till it's singing the right note.

I have to be in love with something before I throw myself on any grenades for it.

Cars for some reason no longer do that for me.

Here's a list of cars and my romance factor with them.

Very first, but it was a gift. 1976 Chevy Nova that was too a piece 'o' shit. But it was a college car that got me back and forth. Cars of that era you could ignore. Try and kill a Chevy Nova with neglect, you can't. You need to fire a shotgun into the block to do that. I'd put my love for the car at a C-.

The second one was a Renault Alliance, my first standard shift car. It too became a junk heap but I think more to the design and cheap steel the froggies had put into it. I will say one thing though, you cannot get stuck in any snow or snow banks with a standard. If you balance the clutch just right, you can get out of anything. I'd place my love for that car at a C- too.

The third one, my baby, the Dodge 400 Convertible. A+ love affair! That died due to being a Lee Iacocca K car variant. But it died in it's sleep surrounded by loved ones..me!

I do miss it...I miss old loves at times, who doesn't?

The fourth, I became more practical and got a Mazda Protege. I kept that “up” till the switch in my brain occurred, then I started hating on it as it kept wanting new parts, oil, this and that. Screw you!

One time, I had pulled into the driveway of friend in Plymouth and when he hopped into it, he says; “Christ...this car is a dish rag!” True, I had let it go that far. My love for it? C-

That last car that I currently own was a throwback to my youth, a Chrysler Sebring convertible. At first, I enjoyed it as any 44 year old guy scared shitless of aging and trying to hang onto what youth he has left. I did manage to have some fun with it for a while but it wasn't like the fun I had when I was 25. I wasn't 25 anymore, that was the difference. I had become too grown up. This car I've let slide into dish rag-ness. I will do what I've done to my other unloved cars, treat it with neglect that would get DCYF here in a hurry (if it were a real, live child). Love for it? At first, I'd say a B+ but as it wanted, parts, upkeep...I turned against it. Now i'm at C-

The next one? Hell, I'll settle for a skanky, underpowered 4 cyl tramp, hussy, trollop, whore one. I'll probably treat it as such too. I'll take from it everything I want and give little in return.

Shit...and once I was called misogynistic? I am with cars!