Blog Entry, September 2014:
“Sometimes I miss being four years old and waiting all day long for the neighbor kid to get home so I could drive his little battery-operated car that topped out at 2-and-a-half miles per hour around the block, but then I remember that I have a real-life vehicle that (used to) top out at 120 and that that I can drive it anywhere I want because I am twenty-three years old and I get the exact same kind of excited. This particular nostalgic joy is important to my sense of freedom, which feels a bit threatened lately. When my truck finally kicks the bucket this picture is gonna make me sob.”
I am 26 now and last week my loyal little Ranger finally did sort of kick the bucket in an extremely slow-motion-four-car-ice-accident-nightmare. I did not cry but I sure am sad about it.
On the bright side I have a slightly newer and objectively better Ford Ranger that is four-wheel drive and has 105,000 fewer miles and mostly everything works. We are still in the bonding stage but I am hopeful that we will have new adventures that perhaps the little grey truck was not altogether up for.
I understand that my sentimental attachment to my lovely loyal little truck is unreasonable because to anyone else it is a smelly worthless garbage float but I was the proud Captain of the Smelly Worthless Garbage Float for ten years and when I sit in the ink-and-mud stained driver’s seat and struggle with the ignition until the engine wakes up with a screechy yawn I feel nothing but joy and pride which is very dumb and I know it.
In case you are interested, here is a list of The Little Grey Truck’s, umm, quirks, some good some not, in no particular order:
- The cabin light does not come on because I took it out for uninteresting reasons, but we all have phones with flashlights these days so it’s really fine. If you open the glove box, there is a light inside that creates a warm, romantic glow.
- Tailgate is sort of hard to open due to a faulty handle but is a very fun-and-easy repair once every three years or so using heavy-duty zip ties or really anything on hand.
- Tape player is in tiptop shape. Never doesn’t play the tape, obediently skips forward and backward, pauses when asked.
- Accident-related damage, includes bendy front bumper, fixable smooshed headlight, fixable smooshed taillight.
- Pretty new snow tires and two to four 60-pound sandbags make rear-wheel driving in the Colorado snow “not that bad, really!”
- Brand new trillion dollar heater hose connector is a new and fine addition to a sort of dirty radiator that does not leak anymore!
- Driveshaft is wonkier than it used to be but was recently repaired for a billion and a half dollars. U-joint was also repaired but since repair suspected imbalance causes vibrations from 40-55 mph which are minor and can be accepted or even avoided by never going any of those speeds.
- Check Engine Light comes on periodically, sometimes just for attention, but last inquiry indicates an issue with the Evap control system purge solenoid that made it into 2017’s New Year’s Resolutions.
- Grey color is strikingly beautiful and vehicle has been described as “magnificent artistic treasure,” “aesthetic triumph,” and “glorious adorable masterpiece, precious and dignified in every way."
- Someone pushed the cigarette lighter into the dash one time and only fixed it on a cosmetic level.
- Someone spilled black India Ink on the passenger’s seat on her way back from figure drawing class and did not notice until the next day because the cabin light does not work.
- A high school student wrote directions to a house-sitting job and lyrics to an emo song from the radio on the dashboard in pencil and later found out that erasers don’t work very well on dashboards but layers of dust have since covered up the evidence.
- Gas mileage has been described as “really not so bad for what it is!”
- The driver’s side door does not unlock from the outside. This isn’t a big deal unless you feel that unlocking the passenger door and sticking your butt into the air while holding your pants up with one hand and reaching across to let yourself in with the other is somehow undignified, in which case the solution is to swallow your pride and execute the maneuver quickly and discreetly after glancing around the parking lot two-to-three times.
I know I just called it a Smelly Worthless Garbage Float but it’s actually pretty great and if you or someone you know is interested in owning this wonderful creature please let me know because that movie about that Brave Little Toaster watching his friends get torn apart in a salvage lot really left an impression on me as a child and I’d much rather see it go to a good home where it can roam free, otherwise I may have to store it in my parent’s garage where they have plenty of room I’m sure, and probably won’t even notice it’s there, I bet.
