Used Cars

"Seat Safety Switch" (seat-safety-switch) 09/08/2015 at 11:36 • Filed to: alfa romeo, dry sump ls7, mental issues

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It wasn’t long into my involuntary unemployment that the friendly man from the government suggested I change careers. “You like cars,” his disembodied mouth said in my worst nightmares, “why don’t you work as a car salesman at a dealership? They make pretty good money, and to be honest thinking medium-hard about whatever it is you actually do is terrifying me beyond my ability to maintain rational thought.”

Some force beyond myself compelled my neck muscles to move, my head to nod, my mouth to voice primitive agreement. Before the end of the week I was wearing a pretty snazzy blazer and telling people about low APRs and how many cupholders the Crosstour Ridgeline Express by Nautica had. That’s when she walked in.

She was perfect. A 1987 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce, traded in by a widow demanding to get rid of “this old car” in exchange for a hip and happening Chevrolet Sonic Turbo with bluetooth. She hadn’t gotten much for it, but I knew exactly how much, and it was this stack of bills that I thrust into the used car department’s manager’s face, demanding the surrender of the automobile. After an aggressive negotiation involving the shop’s two post lift and half a gallon of brake cleaner, she was mine. And what a jewel she was. But like all great beauties, she had one tragic flaw she would hide from her adoring public, that had to be teased out and worked past.

The two-liter engine’s olio cap looked sadly at me from the shelf on which the longblock now sat, cursed to sit there for all eternity or until I needed to infuse a moped with Italian charm and free-revving bliss. My worried coworkers started to rap on the barricaded door to the dealership shop, at first claiming to be interested in my mental health and then migrating to threats about law enforcement, but by then it had been too late. A perfect diamond had emerged from all the pressure of my newfound career, and the comparison to dark, choking clouds of carbon was indeed apt.

I turned the spindly, cherrywood-topped key in its cramped ignition cylinder and leaned back into the plush velvet seat. Under the hood, both too distantly and too close for comfort, a dry-sump LS7 roared to its rev limit and then backfired horrific clouds of ash from its narrow-body long-runner headers as the ignition cut hit.

My cellphone rang. It was my roommate, telling me the police were in the room with him and that I must turn myself in. I hung up on him. It wasn’t safe to use a cellphone while you drive, anyone can see that.

Chuck 2(O=[][]=O)2 > Seat Safety Switch 09/08/2015 at 18:28

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Great movie

Seat Safety Switch > Chuck 2(O=[][]=O)2 09/08/2015 at 21:07

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Good taste in cars and films. Will wonders never cease.