Day #6. Vehicle. Meet My P.O.S.

Throughout high school and college, I drove a 1996 Toyota Rav 4. It was periwinkle. The horn was broken, so for a while it had a sign on the back that said "Horn broken, watch for finger." It had so many college stickers adhered to the back window, you couldn't get a clear shot of the road when you looked through the rear-view mirror.

I loved that thing. (FYI: In case you remember said SUV and are wondering what happened to it: The Rav recently passed on to Vehicular Heaven, also known as the scrap yard in Queenstown, MD. It lived a full life and spent its golden years toting beach chairs and umbrellas to and from our house in Bethany and accumulating sand in its important bits).

After the Rav, I had a brief love affair with a 2000 Jeep Cherokee, but I found that the gas was roughly equivalent to my car payment, and it moved on to a lot at CarMax where I believe it made friends and played well with others.

I then purchased a 2004 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport. Mike and I affectionately refer to it as "the Sububu." My students refer to it as "Ms. Schwind's beater" and I can't really argue with that summation.

Meet my P.O.S:
Current mileage: 138,000

Number of Times the Tires have been replaced: 5

Number of Oil Changes Administered in the Suggested 3mos/3,000mi: 0

Number of Tree Limbs Fallen on Car: 6 (if you only count the big ones)

Seriously, my car is a tree limb magnet. Tree limbs fall in my backyard, get up, walk over the driveway and jump on my car.

Don't believe me?

Proof:

See that weird splotchy light? Yeah, its doing that because the entire front of my car was bashed in by an errant tree limb and now my car is apparently capable of creating blinding light.

If you look around you will also notice multiple small dents created by the acorns that fall from our trees at mach-10 and land on my car like tree-fetus-bullets.

Maybe I have angered the trees. Perhaps I should hug more of them. Recycle more avidly. Conserve paper.

Because only a tree that is truly and deeply pissed off would drop this onto someone's car:

Yeah, see that? Its as tall as me.

And then there are the mystery marks. When I got them is not a mystery. What caused them is a mystery.

Let's see what you think:


So I'm driving along Huguenot Rd. on my way back from Einstein's Bagels one afternoon and I'm stopped at a red light. There's an Urban Assault Vehicle (aka: Suburban or the like) on my left and a few people behind us.


Its a summer day in Richmond, which means that its sunny and so-hot-you-feel-like-someone-stuck-the-earth-in-a-crock-pot.


I'm sitting at the light -- minding my own business -- when...


BAM!


BAM! BAM BAM!


Its so loud, I really, truly, honestly, Scout's Honor believe to Jesus that someone has shot at me.


I start to get out of my car.


Then I think: Trying to make the sniper's job easier, Self? Self, sit your ass down.


Stoopid.


I look around. The occupants of the Urban Assault Vehicle (UAV) are doing the same. We are all confused. I did not hallucinate this event.


Then I see them.


There are three massive cow-turd sized heaps of ash in the road around my car.


Heaps of ash. Are you hearing me here? When have you ever seen this? Unfortunately, ash does not survive rain storms, which we had later that night, so no one saw the ash heaps after The Event.


I should have gotten the driver of the UAV's number so he could verify this story.


One of these cow-turd-ash-heaps hit my car and produced this:

See those four dots on my luggage rack? And the dent below? They weren't there before The Event.

So I consult many, many people on this topic -- what the hell hit my car that could then produce these marks and giant cow-turd ash heaps.

My father, a source of infinite and reliable information suggests that the objects in question were....

Ready...?

Wait for it...

Space junk.

Yes space junk. And let me tell you, I am all-in on this interpretation. Space junk hit my car. I mean, its entirely possible right? There's all kinds of shit floating around in our atmosphere, right? And, you know, gravitational pull, depleting ozone layer, meteors, other astronomical words...

In Case You Were Wondering: Mike is not on this interpretation's bandwagon.

While I waiting for the economy to stop sucking so I can afford a nicer car, I invite speculation on The Event.

In the meantime, me and my P.O.S will be hauling down local suburban roads as the trees launch acorns at us. And since the trees can't hear my horn, they're getting the finger.