by Dukasaur on Fri Aug 16, 2019 3:24 pm
Not a happy subject for me. My father was too cheap to take the car to the shop, we did all our own work, and it always ended with a punch in the head for me. He'd never have the right size wrench, so he'd do everything with Vice-Grips, and they'd slip, and then he'd skin his knuckles, and then he'd punch me in the head. That was his go-to solution for any problem: punch me in the head. And when we worked on cars we always had a lot of problems, because he was too cheap to buy decent tools and he was too cheap to buy new parts. All the parts were rusty shit he'd buy from the scrapyard, and all the tools were mis-matched pieces from different sets that he stole from work. Didn't matter if we were changing an alternator or changing a starter or just re-gapping the plugs -- it would always end with me on the ground holding my nose or my ear.
I'll tell you, though -- my father was a total asshole in many ways, but he was creative. He had this Malibu SS (a ''67 Malibu SS, which even today people still talk about as one of the nicest model years) and it ate alternators like peanuts. We changed the alternator three or four times and it never worked, so finally he said, "f*ck it, I won't spend another penny on alternators." And true to his word, he didn't. Every night after work he'd take the battery out and bring it in the house to throw on the charger, and every morning ther'd be a fully charged battery ready for a day's work. Then, to make the process faster, he put a carrying handle on the battery. Then, it was still a pain in the ass, so he punched a hole in the firewall, ran booster cables through the firewall, and put the battery on the front seat, so at the end of the day he didn't even have to lift the hood, just grab the battery and go.
Eventually he got something newer and the Malibu became my car. I think I was only 13 or 14, didn't have a license obviously, but out on the farm roads cops were a pretty rare sight so we didn't pay much attention to stuff like licenses. So I'd go bombing around in the Malibu like I was King Shit. We were poor, but I had a nicer car than any of my friends. Hell, most of my friends didn't have Any car! Until one day, I hit a bit pothole and the battery bounced off the seat and landed upside-down on my leg. Of course, now with all the years of experience I know: no matter what happens, come to a stop first, throw on the parking brake, and THEN try to figure out how to fix it. But at 14, I didn't have the benefit of all those years of experience, so of course I tried to pick up the battery with one arm while continuing to drive with the other. Bad idea. When I woke up, a tree was sitting in the passenger seat. "Hi, tree! Didn't see you hitchkiking!" That was the sad end of a beautiful Malibu.
“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
― Voltaire
