5:45 p.m. - 04.28.2003
76 Trombones In The Big Parade
I currently have no job, am semi-homeless, but I do own two nice cars. At least until Friday, when the new owner of my old car comes to claim it.
I put an ad in the local middle-of-nowhere paper to sell my car, and I received no local calls but a slew of out of state calls. In the end I sold the car to Pope John Paul. He rang me from Kansas City and it seems he's something of a collector/restorer of my old car's model. He's flying in to drive it back to Kansas.
You want me to clarify, don't you.
The buyer told me his name was John Paul. His email address begins Pope0825. Plus, even though the car is his and it's a done deal, he calls here every other hour. My mom and I have taken to calling him Pope John Paul based largely on the telecommunications miracles he performs.
So I spent the day in the sun shining up Pope John Paul's sporty new pope-mobile (It's white too!) and my new 'Seattle or Bust' conestoga (read: Mazda Millenium).
As I was cleaning it (with holy water! I had it blessed at the catholic church which is no less than 1-block away. Really.) I realized I sure am going to miss the pope-mobile. I grew up in after all. I got it when I was still 15 and just now stopped driving it. Yeah, I'm 27. The car is all I know. But I'm headed west and new life-phases call for a complete purging of all things old to usher in all things new.
The only problem is - all I've ever known is a 5-speed. Now I have an automatic and I hate it. I miss the control of downshifting around corners and up to red lights. Now I drive a giant golf cart. I'm surprised the brake doesn't have an extra "hill brake" on it like carts do.
Bt still, I love my new ride. I'm going to scrub it with a toothbrush till it shines like the top of the Chrystler Building! Annie would be so proud (even though, secretly, it's Pepper I would rather impress.)
I'm thinking mad ground effects on the car, Fast-and-the-Furious style cuz I hear thats what the Seattle honeys like. Nitros, a boomin' system, and stickers of Calvin peeing on any number of things, like war, or Bush, or handguns...that's what he's normally peeing on right, things that frustrate the common man? (Maybe I need to think more universal, like toast crumbs in the butter or the last square of toilet paper or telemarketers.)
I definately want some hydraulics, for when I turn the corner as I "sip the potion and hit the three-wheeled motion." That's when my hydraulics raises the front of my car as I take a drink from my delicious 40oz. malt liquor beverage.
The car will shine so bright that when I pull into Seattle people are going to think it's some kind of parade. And it will be.
Children will be running down the street after my car, excited to be apart of the parade. The locals will come running and waving to their curbside to welcome me to my new home.
I'll have all the windows down, the sun will be gleaming off my gold teef, and I'll have the latest jams blaring outta the car, like Wreck-n-Effex's Rump Shaker.
Neighborhood welcome-wagons will be chasing me down, arms laden with Hickory Farms, Yankee Candles, and flyers with interview-free corporate job postings and outrageously low-rent houses.
When I stop to get out of the car and thank my kind new city, I'll have to shoo away the children and bark at them to stop pawing the shiny vehicle that has incited the impromptu parade and local holiday.
But I'll quickly follow up with a wink and a smile as I tell the kids that, with a little hard work, maybe one day their mother's will give them a free Mazada Millenium as well.
And they'll rush off beaming - mostly because I winked at them. Winking at kids makes them feel shy and uncomfortable because it's so rare for an adult to give such an obvious sign signaling, "That's an inside joke between you and me partner. We are social equals." The sudden change in role always throws them for a loop. They never know if they are to smile, laugh, or stare at their feet in embarrassment. Works on adults too. A very powerful and commanding tool, the wink. Never underestimate it. Everyone likes to be given the idea that they are in on something greater or "In the know."
D'oh, I've gotten off track. Where was I? Oh yes...
So should I write 'Seattle or Bust' on my car or not?
I'm thinking not now, because it's pretty much a dead give away that all my worldly possessions are in the car waiting to walk off without me. MAybe I'll take a Sharpie and write it on my forehead instead.
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