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| Omni | | Date Created: Feb 21, 2005, 07:58 PM |
In the recent series of posts on "Events That Made Me Gay," I've referred lovingly to my Dad's 1984 metallic midnight blue Ford F150. It was my second favorite thing in the world. I figured I should, in honor of that great truck, write about it's final chapter in my life. (Though this has nothing to do with women that made me gay-- think of it as another random segue.)
First, some background that's completely unecessary. Feel free to skip ahead a bit, if you wish, the real story starts with the black text.
I attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Calvin is a small, Christian, Dutch Reformed, conservative, liberal-arts college. Every college has a small number of women who are there for their "Mrs." degree. Calvin has a large number of women wh are there for their "Mrs." degree. One of Calvin's most important contributions to society is insuring that quiet, polite, blonde, Christian, young women find quiet, polite, blonde, Christian, young men and marry them. I once had a job interview where the interviewer, noting that I went to Calvin, was amazed -- and I mean truly amazed -- that I escaped without getting married.
By the second semester of my Senior year, all of my friends were engaged. Those senior women who were not yet betrothed stalked campus with a determined, hungry, slightly crazed look flashing in their eyes. They were the huntresses, I was the hunted. I would run from class to my apartment, narrowly escaping the gangs of unattached women roaming the campus in search of someone to save them from quiet, polite, blonde, Christian spinsterhood. The whole thing resembled a scene from 28 Days Later, but scarier.
I remember a big meeting, held in our apartment, where all of my friends' fiances plotted out the summer wedding season so they could all particpate in each other's weddings without too much trouble. I went to nine weddings that summer. There are only twelve weekends in June, July, and August, and three of them are holiday weekends, so some of the couples had to have their weddings in the fall. In most of these weddings, I was a groomsman, or Master of Ceremonies, or soloist. (Alas, no one would let me do liturgical dance. But the fact that I asked should have tipped someone off to something...including me!) It was also understood that I would particpate as "Eligible Bachelor" as all of my friends conspired to pair me with whichever quiet, polite, blonde, Christian, snaggletoothed bridesmade was still single.
One weekend in October 1993, I had two weddings to attend. This brings me back to the story of how I lost my truck -- my beloved 1984 metallic midnight blue Ford F150, which was my second favorite thing in the world.
I had just started grad school in Ann Arbor that fall. One of the weddings was in Grand Rapids, and one was several hours north, in Gaylord, Michigan (hee hee...yes it's really called "Gaylord"). The Grand Rapids wedding was a morning event, the Gaylord one was in the afternoon. Thus, I could attend the morning wedding, and the afternoon reception, if I didn't mind doing a lot of driving. This meant I would have to drive from Ann Arbor, to Grand Rapids, and then to Gaylord and back to Ann Arbor in my truck. I loved my truck, but had little money to pay for gas and that much driving was going to break the bank. (I was a student -- it was a very small bank.)
Friday night, as I drove to my parents house, near Grand Rapids, I struck upon a plan. I'd leave my truck with my parents and take their Omni, which got something like 27834 miles to the gallon. I'd do all my driving, then trade vehicles the next weekend and save myself all sorts of money in gas. That evening, I explained my plan to my Dad.
"No," was his answer.
"Why not?"
"We just had full coverage taken off it because your Mom only uses it to drive back and forth to work, and I don't like the way you drive. You drive too fast."
"I'll be careful. It would really save me a lot of money."
We debated back and forth, with me promising over and over how careful I would be and how slowly I would drive. (You do see where this is going, right?) Finally my Dad agreed and the next morning I set out on my trip.
I made the first wedding fine. No problem. Then I headed up north to go to the reception of the second wedding. Hours passed. The freeway turned to highway, which turned to two lane road. A fair amount of traffic, speeding along above the speed limit, but not too fast, and I was at the tail end of a group that was clipping along nicely.
Then I got pulled over. State cop. 70 in a 55. I hadn't really noticed I was going that fast. In the truck I never even had to look at the speedometer to know how fast I was going, so I guess it snuck up on me. I was the last in line, so I was the easiest to pick off. Great. Nice. I'd promised Dad I wouldn't speed, and now I had a ticket. This never would have happend in the truck. No one stops pickups, unless they're red. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Dad was going to be pissed.
I still had a reception to make, so I start out again, pulling off onto one of the rural roads that head into Gaylord. Watching my speed, of course. Ahead there's a sharp curve in the road, posted 45MPH. Though the curve is to the left, it banks sharply to the right -- great design there. I slow down -- way down. As I pull into the turn, the front passenger side tire slips off onto the shoulder which is about 6 inches of loose sand. I slowly try to pull the car back up onto the pavement and it suddenly starts spinning. In hindsight, what was "slowly trying to pull the car back up onto the pavement" in an Omni was probably way too fast because I was so used to the truck.
Cue the slow motion... I spin around twice, across the other lane, now the car is facing backwards, it slides sideways down into the ditch on the other side of the road. Then I feel the car go up, lurch, and roll and roll, completely over, back onto the wheels.
I sit there.
Oh shit. I mean gosh darnit.
Dad is gonna kill me.
I can't see very well. Why can't I see? I do a quick inventory to determine whether my neck is broken or if I'm bleeding. I notice that I'm not wearing my glasses, they popped off at some point. Oh, that's why I can't see. I find them on the passenger side floor and put them on. Completely uninjured (except for a small bruise on my collarbone because of the seatbelt that I notice later.) At some point I should get out and see how screwed I really am.
I get out and look at the car. I am -- apparently -- very, very screwed.
The Omni was a very light car, but heavy enough to crunch in the roof of the car on both sides at the windows. Picture an Omni, but now with a rounded roof. The driver's side headlight is hanging out by the wires, and the rear passenger side tire is completely off the rim.
I hear someone running up to me.
"Oh my god! My fence! My fence!" she yells.
I had apparently crashed right through this woman's fence. By fence I mean some wooden posts dug into the ground around her trailer, strung with 8 gauge wire. She's worried about her fence.
"I'm OK" I say.
"Well, my fence isn't," she replies.
"Yeah. Sorry about that," I say as I push the post back into the hole in the ground and tap it in with my foot, thus completely repairing the "fence."
"I need to call the police," she says.
"No, not really," I say. "I'll pay you for the damage to the fence."
She looks me over. A young man in an expensive suit and tie, nice shoes. You'd think she would have agreed. Oh god, why couldn't she have agreed?
"I'm going to call the cops anyway." And she does. Shit.
It's freezing and I'm surveying the damage to the car, shivering in my light suit pants and dress shirt. A pickup truck pulls up. Apparently these are the paramedics. They yell out the window to ask me if I'm alright and I say that I am, so they leave. I could have been drunk or delirious, they wouldn't have known.
A cop shows up. State cop.
Same cop.
The officer gets out of his car and I immediately see that he's the same guy who gave me a ticket not 30 minutes ago. "So, a ticket wasn't enough, huh? Didn't slow down did you Alan?"
"Officer, I know you don't have any reason to believe this, but I was really driving slow."
"We have accidents here all the time," the woman interjects helpfully, "I keep telling people that the curve is posted too fast." The officer ignores her.
I sit in his cruiser as he fills out the ticket. He calls in my driver's licence number and asks if they've got anything on me. I hear the dispatcher say, "You mean in the last 30 minutes?" They laugh. I don't.
"My Dad's gonna kill me," I keep repeating, hoping the officer will have some sympathy. He doesn't. I keep hoping that he'd have some pity and just kill me himself. He doesn't.
When I have the ticket -- Driving Too Fast For Conditions -- I ask the officer if he can help me push the car to the driveway that cuts through the ditch. There I can change the tire and be on my way. "Nope," he says, "Hafta call a tow truck for that." And he does.
The tow truck shows up and a man who looks suspiciously like the brother of cop (and is wearing a state police baseball hat) pulls my car 10 feet onto the driveway and charges me fifty dollars. He offers to change the tire, only another thirty dollars, but I can change it myself. I ask the woman if I can use her restroom to change my clothes, I'm obviously not going to this reception now, and I'm not changing the tire in my only suit.
I walk into her trailer, a nice, polite looking young man in an expensive suit and tie. I walk out in a faded black t-shirt, ripped jeans and leather biker jacket. I've put my earrings back in, all three of them -- unheard of in northern Michigan. She seems scared now and declines my offer to pay for the fence. She just wants Psychoboy out of her trailer -- she's seen those Movies of the Week where the stranded traveller ends up gutting women in their trailers.
I change the tire, and use the woman's phone to call the folks. My Mom answers the phone and within seconds is hysterical. I ask to talk to my Dad, and he calmly tells me what to look for to make sure the car is OK for the trip back home. I push the headlight back into the grill, then I'm on my way.
Five miles down the road I hear a loud bang. Another tire has blown and I've already used the spare. It's 8PM in October, in northern Michigan, which means it's pitch black, and freezing. (And in case you've forgotten, it's 1993, cell phones were not common -- certainly not for poor college students.)
Ahead, a couple miles, I see a mercury light and a house, so I start walking, knowing there isn't anyone in a 300 mile radius who is going to let Psychoboy into their house to use their phone. I walk to the house and ring the door bell. About two minutes later an ancient woman shuffles to the door and opens it.
"I'm very sorry to bother you ma'am, but I just blew a tire out on the highway. Can I use your phone to call for help?" There is no way in hell this woman is letting me in her house. She's undoubtedly seen Movies of the Week too, and I'm sure she's having Old Lady nightmares about me already.
"Why certainly. Come right in, it's cold out there." Ah. Gotta love the Midwest.
Her husband sits in a wheelchair, his oxygen tank hissing quietly as he watches Wheel of Fortune. She offers me a brownie, which I decline, because I've seen those Movies of the Week too, and I know that Old Lady brownies usually contain some sort of drug and I'm gonna end up locked in her basement.
I use the phone and walk back to the Omni. An hour later a tire service stops by and charges me eighty dollars to replace the tire. I get in and limp home, eventually arriving around midnight.
Let's take a second and total up this little trip, shall we?
Wedding present, I never gave the couple (a clock): $25
First ticket for speeding: $105
Second ticket: $80
Tow truck: $50
Tire service: $80
Getting killed by my father: Priceless
Yeah, the gas money (the reason this all happened in the first place) would have been cheaper....much cheaper.
The folks are already in bed. Not a good sign. They don't even want to see me. I walk past their door and my Mom calls out quietly. "Are you OK?"
"Yeah."
Then my father's voice in the dark, "We'll talk about this in the morning." He sounds like Darth Vader, but less cheery.
Oh shit. I mean gosh darnit.
I wake up at around 6AM to the sound of loud banging on metal. I look outside my bedroom window to see my father pounding out the dents in the Omni with a rubber mallet. I get up and go downstairs to help him.
"We're keeping the truck. How do you like your new car?" he asks.
Oh yes, I got a stern talking to, but I think after Dad saw the car, he was just happy I was OK.
I never drove the 1984 metallic midnight blue Ford F150 again. Eventually, Dad gave it to my brother as a winter beater. I drove the Omni for four more years. One of the back windows never really rolled up completely and the back floor would fill with water when it rained, until I drilled a hole in the floor that let the water drain. One of the back doors didn't work. Eventually the defroster conked out. The thermostat never worked, and I'd have to take it out every summer, or the car would overheat, and then put it back in every fall or it wouldn't heat up. When I finally got a teaching job, before the ink on my contract was even dry, and before I had my first paycheck, I bought my Dad's 1997 metallic teal Ford F150 from him, which I still drive. Over 180,000 miles and still going strong. It still looks brand new.
Not a birthday, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or any other family gathering goes by that my Dad doesn't mention my "little accident." He's the master of working into an otherwise completely unrelated conversation: "Yeah, well speaking of passing the turkey, remember when Alan wrecked the Omni?" |
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