Tool Time with Me (#1)

Sometimes I'll be sitting there minding my own business and a thought of something that happened in my past will pop into my head for no apparent reason that will make me feel completely stupid about myself and will usually result in a good laughing at my own expense. Many of them I keep to myself. But I noticed as time goes on, I forget about some of these stories. To ensure that this doesn't happen, I am going to start writing these down. Just b/c this is #1, it's not the best, it just is what popped in my head this morning while brushing my teeth.

Back in the Fall of 2000, I decided to buy my first car. I actually bought a 1968 327 Camaro in candy apple red. It's a beautiful car that I still own today. And what I love about it most is that it is what it's supposed to be… a car. Just a car, nothing more. There's no disc brakes, no heat or airconditioning, no fancy shocks, no bells, no whistles… shit, there's hardly a radio. And it's not a computer on wheels. Many would say what a piece of shit. I say it's the last of its kind and I love it. Just give me some muscle and my windows rolled down and I'm perfectly happy.

Well, I'm sort of getting away from my story here. It's just that it's a beautiful day in Chicago and I can't wait to get home to go for a ride. It's the best way for me to unwind after a shite week.

So at the time, I was working at my first job out of school selling computer equipment. I used to always talk to this one purchaser at corporate and she sounded pretty cute.

Sidenote: One thing that I learned in sales in numerous occasions that what may sound cute over the phone is typically not nearly as cute in person.

So after speaking for a couple months we decided it would be a good idea to meet up and go for a movie. One night in October she decided to drive out from the city to where my parents lived (b/c at that time I rolled deep still pimpin' at the p-units crib). From there, we were going to go for drinks and a movie. It was a great night out so I decided what better way to impress this girl than with my new shiny muscle car. Sounded like a great idea at the time but as Lumberg would say in his this probably isn't going to work word of "Yeeeeeeeeaaaaahhh" b/c it turned out to be a disaster. It wasn't anything about the car or me that didn't lead to a second date. And in fact, the girl turned out to be really cute.

And this is why I'm a chotch (reason #1). I had no fucking clue how to drive stickshift. And as if by convincing myself hard enough at that time that it wouldn't be a problem, I surged forward b/c I was cool and I would pull it off.

WRONG, senor chotchorino. When you can't drive stick, you're not going to get lucky and magically be able to drive a stick shift car or even come close enough to fake like you can. You're going to "crash n burn, Mav".

As I watched her being thrown around her seat as the car jerked every which way and the trans and motor made terrible sounds, almost angry sounds that I'm sure if they could be translated into english, it would go something like "hey fuck stick, give it gas" or "if I could, I would rip your balls off". The car definitely wasn't happy with me and I think the girl was even less happy with me. I think the worst part was that she knew how to drive stick so she knew exactly what I was doing wrong and kept trying to tell me what I should do while I was driving. I looked like the ultimate pussy being told how to drive my own muscle car by a chick I didn't even know.

And just to be reminded how bad it was for her. We went to see the Exorcist. I couldn't help to have flashbacks to just an hour earlier when I saw the little girl being tossed around on the bed uncontrollably. Again "yeeeeeeeeeaaaahh". I was thinking, my poor date gets to sit here for about another hour before she'll suffer the same fate in the passenger seat of my vehicle... for the second time tonight! And my shit isn't even possessed!

Yeah, she never spoke to me again. At that point, I just considered myself lucky that I didn't get a bill from her chiropractor.