This is going to hurt just a little....
I would like to type something because if I say it out loud I think my throat will close up on instinct.
That car of mine. That 1982 Honda Civic with manual choke automatic standard...
As my Dad would say, "It's a good little car".
People have opened up my hood and taken a tour of my car and wondered how in the world it runs. How has it started over and over with that battery that has been corroding the posts and with wires that crumble when you expose them? It burns oil so bad that it stinks and smokes and makes me embarassed when people pull up beside me. They look at me. I look at them and turn away like nothing is happening while smoke billows out from under my hood. But, it still starts. It plows through snow like its a 4 x 4. I think maybe it gets such a good run through the snow because it slams into gear so hard my car leaps forward and it can't help but get a fast start on the ice. It's definately not because I have good tires. I Tokyo drift with easy control around corners, particularly around the Victoria bridge ice rink traffic circle and if I'm not picking up speed I just slam it into a gear and it hops along. Despite its quirks I really haven't spent much on it to fix it. Sure, the muffler slips off and I drag it down the highway every now and then. Sure, sometimes I sit and stare in wonder while a high pitch sqeeling noise comes out from the dash area that has made me think perhaps it was a bomb and someone confused me for a spy and one day it will blow. Sure, fumes come in that make me sick to my stomach. Sure, I've never had windsheild wipers that fully work and the washer fluid streaks out in two even straight lines like a water gun. But, when push comes to shove it's a good little car.
Now please excuse me while I go wash my mouth out with soap to get this awful taste out of it.
(One another note the, smoke has reminded me of another story I should share. Once, I borrowed a boyfriends car and I drove all the way down the street with the e-brake up. I pulled up to the red light and someone honked at me and told me my car was on fire. I get out and have a look and there was so much smoke I thought I had destroyed it. When I confessed about the brakes I said that I had only left it up for about a block and could that cause alot of damage? He said it should be fine. I think I drove the whole length between Circle drive and Preston Avenue. Man, that was bad.)
Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead.
~Mac McCleary
7 comments:
I had a car like that once. It was a K-car. What a piece of junk. It did finally die and is resting peacefully out in the back 40 on someone's acreage.
yup... you had that car, and then colin wiebe had that car, and then you had that car, and then i had that car, and then you had that car, and then it died... gotta love jerry and betty's back 40... i've sent a couple cars there too
Honda Civics are like that. I remember when Kyle and I first started dating, his parents had this old Honda Civic. Then when he got his drivers. Then he got a different car, gave it back to his parents. Then his parents sold it to his friend Rob. Then it went from Rob to another friend, Jon, then back to Rob, and now to Jeff. And to this day, it's still running, though I don't know how.
Tye bought a 1980 Toyota Carolla from a friend of mine. 3 of her brothers had owned it before her, so all 483,000 kms were well earned. Tye bought it for $150 and he and his friends, Shawn and Jason Hamm worked on it for a weekend, repairing the head gasket. Tye drove it hard in Martensville then we moved to Calgary and he drove it equally hard there for a year. At one point I had to drive it to work for about 2 weeks until I got that little Dodge Shadow from Mitz. To keep it in 5th gear, Dad had cut a hockey stick just the right length and cut a notch in it so that it fit between the gear shift (in 5th gear) and the ash tray at the back end of the e-brake. By the time we moved to Killam even that didn't work. The only way he could shift gears at all was to turn the car off, shift gears and turn the car on again and it didn't even go in 5th gear. I made him leave it behind when we moved to BC. It had 538,000 miles on it and didn't use any oil to speak of. He loved that little car.
Hi. This is Tye. Mom left the computer on this comments page and I thought I'd add a bit. Firstly, when I got the car the thing was making so much noise that Shawn and Jason (Hamm) decided to tow it to my place rather than drive it, even though it did drive. The previous owner had taken it to a mechanic who had said it would probably cost $2000 just to find out what was wrong. I bought it for $150, Shawn charged me $50/day for 3 days, and the parts cost $150, so in the end I paid $450 for it. It being my first car and all I did treat it very much like the toy it was. The first thing we did was lay a 1 or 2 car length black strip in front of our house. The second was to go tearing through the Monkey Hills at 50 kph after a hard rain. All in all, a very good time was had by all. Now about the problems in Calgary, the tranny slipped out of fifth so we held it there with the afore-mentioned hockey stick piece. While in Calgary the bent component in the tranny finally snapped and it wouldn't go into gear while the engine was running. Then while I was taking it apart we suddenly had to move. So I quickly slapped it all back together and drove about 250kms in the winter starting the car off in second gear, reving it all the way to 80kph, then turning off the engine, switching all the way to fifth and turning the car back on. I never did get around to fixing it again. Then we moved to BC. Leaving that car was about the only thing I didn't like about the move. I got over it, but I still miss rallying around the Monkey Hills. *sigh* Those were the days. Oh no. Now I'm starting to sound old.
My friend Shaun had a 1980 Honda Civic. It was terrible in every way imaginable. We used to hit anything and everything with it.
We once packed nine people into it and drove it pretty hard.
After that night, he sold it to some guy for 150 bucks and the engine ceased on the guy within a week.
We have had our share of cars that were certainly sub-standard. But if they started and got us from point A to point B we were happy.
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