Horseless Carriages

I do not have good luck with cars.

I'm a sensible driver.  I don't "gun" the engine. I don't aim for potholes. I don't hit curbs. I don't tailgate. I like speed but not around town.

I am perfect.

My cars, however, are not.

I got Bessie inspected this past Wednesday--three days ago. She had a temperamental rattle up front and a stubborn streak upon acceleration. U-joint said Hubby, maybe a ball joint or two. A steering arm. A loose heat shield, perhaps.

When he finally switched to speaking English, I gathered up my checkbook and headed for the dealership.

Ah, yes, Betsy needed new shoes. And some kind of hub (two of those) and a bunch of other stuff, including the U joint and the drive shaft. Geez.

Do we put all this money into a vehicle with over a hundred thousand miles on it? I think not.

Buy something, said Hubby.

I hate car shopping. My son sold cars. I would say, "Find me something I can afford." He would say, "Come sign the papers", and PRESTO! the deal was done. 

This time I was sans Nick, but at least I knew everybody else.

"Can you bring the car down for an assessment for your trade?"

"Sure! Twenty minutes."

Not to be.

Halfway down the highway, four lanes of sixty-mile-per-hour traffic, I heard a grind. Then a rattle, then a BANG! BANG! BANG!!!!!. Old Bessie was cleaning her closets of parts she didn't want anymore--including the drive shaft. The drive shaft?  Really?

I won't bore you with waiting for a flatbed tow, cleaning out five years of junk from the trunk, finding a car to replace her, endless piles of paperwork and the trip back home in a Buick loaner, then back again because I had left my driver's license in my briefcase. I won't tell you about agonizing the  choice between a minuscule hatchback with a trunk--not exaggerating here--big enough to hold a Pepsi twelve pack and a limo-size SUV that sleeps ten. 

An aside here. The little bugger had an energizing yellow and black interior. It was love at first sight--until I turned the key. Our lawn mower has more power. The real deal-breaker was that there was no CD player. A drive without the Boss? I think not. Besides, Hubby informed me, there was NO WAY he would be seen riding in something that looked like he had flossed from between his teeth.

A word to the wise. The insurance on the mini-hatch, in spite of ten airbags, is still more than the insurance for the behemoth.

In the end, neither the death trap nor the tank sit in my driveway. I ended up (with Hubby's sigh of relief) in a mid-size SUV, the offspring of Bessie. This one has toys...lots of toys... that I can't wait to learn. OnStar, rear back-up camera, remote start. CD player. USB ports. I don't know yet how fast it goes. (Break it in first, girl, says Hubby.)

And XM radio with a channel totally devoted to The Boss.

Uncle Earthmover

I've been getting complaints. It seems that some people want to hear more about my wacky ancestors. Zelda seems a little offended that I won't give her the diary, but, hey, there's a lot of good stuff in there to write about.

As I was flipping through the pages of Tiddlewink's diary, I found some pages stuck together, probably from her relationship to coconut bonbons.

Now, I'm not sure if Uncle Earthmover was really blood or if he was part of the family that was extended by multiple marriages and liaisons so that the familial lines were blurred. Tiddlewinks referred to him as her uncle's uncle (or monkey's uncle--the ink was a bit smeared). At any rate, this is his story.

Earthmover's birth name was Rubigard, and he was called Ruby by most of the clan, which started a lot of jokes about his manliness and caused him to get in a lot of fistfights which was not the reason for the nickname Earthmover. I'll get to that.

Earthmover could not be called skinny by any stretch, but he was tall and nimble, with long arms and a boxer's reach. His head was a bit large (he wore a size nine hat, so they say) and covered with blond ringlets; his eyes were fiercely green and fairly glowed when he got angry. His skin was pale but with apple-red cheeks and a sprinkle of freckles. He looked sweet, but he had a temper that flared in an instant and a bend in his nose that would make one wince in sympathetic pain.

Earthmover, in order to prove his manliness, often engaged in somewhat reckless behavior, like parachuting off the Eiffel Tower, at which time he was arrested and jailed and would still be there if Tiddlewinks had not paid his bail and bribed some French officials. Another time he tried water-skiing behind the Queen Mary, which didn't move fast enough for that, and he nearly drowned in the Atlantic. His adventure with the Panama Canal was legendary, and his disagreement with the grizzly bears is kept alive to this day and without much exaggeration.

It was when he arrived back in the States, however, that his machismo almost finished him off. Ever the daredevil, Earthmover decided to ride two bulls at the same time at the Gerry Rodeo in New York, a small but well-thought of show which featured bull-riding as a main event. Earthmover bullied his way into the stables (so to speak), picked out two of the angriest animals and tied ropes around their necks. From there. he mounted them, one foot on each and gave a "HEE_YAHHH!" as the bulls nearly tore him limb from limb while they bucked around the gravel.

At last one of them succeeded in throwing Earthmover off, and the other one, not to be outdone, kicked so high that Earthmover went flying over the fence and landed through the roof of the concession stand.

Well, the doctor on call said he was dead, all right, and took his body away so as not to interrupt the festivities of the hard-core bunch.

His family, not the sensitive kind like mine or Zelda's, so I'm sure he must have been a fringe relation or none at all, had him buried in a wooden box, said a few words about his salvation, and that was that.

Not quite.

You see, Rubigard wasn't really dead, just knocked for a loop, and suffering from extreme motion sickness so that he was exhausted and concussed and, well, pretty much out of it.

When he woke up, of course, it was damp and dark and he was very hungry, and when the door wouldn't open he was at first panicked, then flew into a rage beyond all previous rages.

He kicked and pounded so hard that the earth shook for miles around. Giant oaks tumbled to the ground; buildings wobbled and it was said that a tsunami formed in Lake Erie. Rubigard's so-called resting place was not so restful, after all.

Now, in those days it was customary to put a bell above each new grave, with a string inside, so that the not-as-deceased-as-we-presumed would have a way of saying,"Hey, people! Let me out!"

The catch is that someone had to be around to hear the bell.

Well. Rubigard's strength was waning as was his air supply. Something tickled his face and he realized it was the string for his saving bell! Ring. ring, ring! No answer. With a mighty "AAARRRGGGHHH" he kicked his long legs for the last time--and got a mouthful of dirt and a sunny blue sky.

Climbing shakily from his near-deathbed, he sucked in great quantities of air, ate some of the chrysanthemums on his grave and crawled to his home at the edge of town. Low and behold, it was already occupied by the low-lifes who had caused him so much torment. Bursting with adrenalin, he tossed them one by one through the door (without the bother of opening it). Once again the earth shook as the temper, for which he was well-known, exploded.

Earthmover lived a long and uneventful life after that, never more to be called Rubigard. He needed give only a petulant stamp of his foot to get the peasants to do his bidding. He was feared more than respected, for as far as they were concerned, he had fought with the devil and won.

And when he died many a decade later, no bell was attached to his coffin.