I have a very particular skill. This may not be the best skill if you need to get around reliably with clients for showing homes and such. My skill is with respect to mobility, though. I possess a keen eye for picking out specific used automobiles for myself. I can survey an extensive fleet of varied vehicles, and then unerringly pick out the one lemon among the entire group. I’ve done this successfully and consistently for years – ever since I made my very first purchase, Big Red.
Big Red was a shiny station wagon that once had something called a “tie rod” fall off, en route to a movie with a young lady that I was trying to impress. She would have been even more impressed had the wheel attached to that oddly named part not fallen off as well. Four wheels are generally considered the optimum number for a smooth ride.
Sadly, that loosely tied tie rod was just one of several parts that had no desire to remain attached to that particular rolling soup can. After assessing the cost of restoring a $300 vehicle to road-worthiness ($1,200), Big Red was pointed towards the closest glue factory.
The Green Machine that replaced my clunker station wagon was scrutinized in advance by a buddy and I, to ensure that any obvious rods or bolts had nuts at the end – not just behind the steering wheel. Happily, nothing ever fell off of that car while I was driving it, but perhaps I should have looked a little harder at the vehicle’s undercarriage. Every nut was certainly bolted, but rust had somewhat loosened the major structural portions of the body. You could literally push your foot right through the floorboards. That old saying, “the feel of the road” beneath the vehicle? I could literally feel it!
The car that replaced The Green Machine had a lot of bells and whistles, but they occurred mostly after I got it up over 60 km an hour. My latest vehicle carries on with this glorious and consistent tradition. One item in particular decided to keep me highly entertained recently, without even being asked to.
While driving along the other day, the horn suddenly started to honk. Loudly and repeatedly, without any prompting from myself. Panicking, I hit the steering wheel, slapped the dashboard, fiddled with knobs and eventually managed to shut it off. For some reason, the volume controls for the radio seemed to help settle it down. I don’t know why.
As I was on my way to pick up my wife at her workplace, I had just a short drive left, before we could return home and I would decide where we might take this beast out to shoot it.
A block away from her office building, I was behind a gravel truck that was stopped at a traffic light, waiting to turn left. I intended to pass him, when the honky horn decided to have one last laugh at my expense. As the horn blasted repeatedly and I hit every knob on the dashboard, I noticed a shadow come over the driver’s side window.
The drive back home from the emergency room was uneventful. I disconnected the horn with a hammer after my nose was straightened back out and braced with gauze and medical tape. First thing tomorrow, I’m looking at the classifieds.
Humour columnist and author Dan St. Yves was licensed with Royal LePage Kelowna for 11 years. Check out his website at danstyves.com.
