Tag Archives: Volkswagens

    A little over nine years ago I drove a wee beige Volkswagen home on a rainy night.  J.D. had had his driver’s license for about a year at that point, and decided the family car should be his full time (his reasoning was simple, he’d learned to drive in it, he continued to drive it, he should just be driving it all the time now).  This left “the family” without a vehicle (“the family” being me of course).  He sat down with the local want ads and immediately found what he was looking for.  Here was a mode of transportation that fit his requirements- less than eight hundred dollars and peculiar, it was perfect, he’d buy that, give it to his mother and keep the car he was used to.  We dragged Daniel out of his bed early in the evening, made him test drive the little Bug and then we presented the owner with an offer.  He took it.  J.D. paid him.  I drove my new “project” home.  Since then we have:

~ replaced the backseat (after it caught on fire)

~ rebuilt the engine

~ repaired the heater, clutch, brakes (twice)

~ replaced all four tires and rims, both door handles, speakers, window roller-up knobs (at least five times)

~ and upgraded the radio to a CD player.

   I also talked a guy in to giving me a super cheapo paint job, using some left over cans he had hanging around in his shop (which has long since gone out of business).  For gift-giving occasions I have received:

~ both front and rear bumpers

~ a new hood and handle mechanism

~ and one rear quarter panel.

   It still needs many things (like a new windshield, and an entire new set of seals for all the glass, among other items).  But here’s what it looked like yesterday.  Really we couldn’t be more proud of my Wee Walnut of Death.  (In case anyone is wondering, my son is still driving his original vehicle.)

   Here’s what I saw today from my wee car’s window:

~ a fabulous leather clad hippie driving his hippie wife in his motorcycle’s sidecar

~ one of my “special” friends from the pool (she was obeying all crosswalk rules and singing to herself, she’s adorable), I waved and called out her name, she was so happy to see me

~ an itchy man wearing three pairs of pants

~ a fire truck disgorging “heroes” like a clown car, only not nearly as quickly nor efficiently (they slowly parked it half in the road and half in the driveway of a building just one lot away from a huge intersection, the better to completely fuck up traffic in five directions)

~ a bearded and turbaned gentleman riding a Segway with earbuds dangling from his head, in front of a Jiffy Lube.

     As many of you know, I drive a very distinctive vehicle.  How we acquired it is a story unto itself, but not today’s story.  I zoom around town, on ridiculous errands many days of the week.  In the past three or four of those days this is what I saw from my wee car:

~An ancient gentleman entering a free way off-ramp, in the wrong direction.  (Fortunately only one slow moving car was coming at him, which apparently clued him in to his misdirection, so he oversteered and made a very unattractive U-turn, and got himself going right.)

~A deputy, whom I have met several times over the years, sitting in traffic at a busy intersection.  SEEING him wasn’t the entertaining part, WATCHING the reactions on his face truly was.  First it was the look of “ew” as though he smelled something very bad when he looked at my strange little car, quickly followed by the “ow” of fright, as he realized WHO was driving that strange little car.  Made me literally laugh out loud.

~A large white woman in a larger white car with a small gray kitten on her shoulder.  The kitten was looking directly at me, the woman was not.

(An aside here on the title of this post, that is what Daniel and J.D. have now named my car, since they have both had to ride shotgun in it recently.)