As promised a few posts ago, in which I shared a few photos of my car, I’d write more extensively about the comedy and tragedy that is my car. So here goes…
Sorry to think this about some of you reading this who may be reading this on Humor-Blogs, but I’m guessing from at least 9/10s of the posts I’ve read that you’re mostly white, citified honkies, so you may not know what a “hooptie” is.
According to the Rap Dictionary, a “hooptie” or “whoopdie” is “an old car in bad shape.” For even more, uh, descriptive definitions, check out Urban Dictionary.
Under any definition or spelling, my car is definitely a hooptie, hoopty, whoopdie (absolutely, as in whoopdie freaking do).
From this side, not so much a hooptie...except for that back tire. Oh, the house on the exterior is a bit of a hooptie too, in't?
Note, NASCAR fans, what my wife calls a "Darlington stripe" down the side.
And stripes put on by a snow shovel from an overzealous snow shoveller. That bastard. Oh, wait, that was me.
From the one side, not so much a hooptie, but from the other side and the top, it definitely qualifies.
How did it get to be this way? Certainly, it didn’t come this way?
Nope.
When I bought it six or seven years ago as my first and so far only car, it didn’t have much mileage on it, under 80,000, I believe. Now, it’s got 152,957, and guardrails and a flood put a beating on it, as you can tell.
First, the guardrails
The Darlington stripe, so named for the infamous Darlington Raceway, down the side actually is a series of stripes from at least two different times that guardrails up and hit the car right out of the blue.
The first time, a guardrail hit my car, I was living in suburban Philadelphia and while driving on a three-laned road, I was in an outside lane, when a car on my right pushed me over to the guardrail…or I should say, the guardrail up and bitch-slapped my car silly. I just kept scraping along, but luckily, that car on the left didn’t hit my car too. I really would have had a hooptie then.
The second time a guardrail hit my car was only a couple of years ago when I moved to where we live now in northcentral Pennsylvania. I was working for a newspaper and was headed to the scene of an accident on icy roads when another guardrail just up and bitch-slapped me again.
This time, though, the guardrail had assistance from slippery roads and the driver of the car who was zooming along at 60 mph — behind a snowplow. I figured hey, he cleared the road for me; I might as well use it.
The car actually was sort of all right– except for a few mishaps, in addition to the ones mentioned, like the time, wait, I mean, times, I hit a curb, those curbs– up until 2003.
That’s when the proverbial poop hit the fan.
Then there was the flood of 2003
The Lord said to Noah
there’s gonna be a floody floody
Lord said to Noah
there’s gonna be a floody floody
Get my children (clap)
out of the muddy muddy
Children of the Lord.
In my case, the Lord R. God didn’t speak to me and tell me about the floody, floody or to get my car out of the muddy, muddy. I sure wish he had though. Instead, one day when I was still living in the suburbs of Philly, I went to work and the waters of the Brandywine rose and while I was in the office, yep, you guessed it, they bitch-slapped my car.
The sun came out
and dried up the landy landy
Sun came out
and dried up the landy landy
Everything was (clap)
fine and dandy dandy
Children of the Lord.
But in my case, after the sun came up and dried up the landy landy, everything was not (clap) fine and dandy dandy.
The interior was rurned. Not just ruined, mind you. But RUR-ned. It was that bad. Not to mention the engine was completely waterlogged and killed.
The dumb asses who were my insurance company at the time decided not to total the car. Instead, they decided to pay for repairs to the interior, to the tune of $3,000 or so dollars. Of course, the body shop that did the work did the work wrong the first time around and still didn’t get it right the second time around either, as I still have carpet on the sides that doesn’t fit snugly like it once used to fit.
The worst part of the whole thing for me was that the flood also rurned the radio so I still can’t read on what station I have it. Not that it matters where we live now as we pretty much have country stations so you don’t need to turn the dials anyway.
I now plug in an iPod and listen to that most of the time via the cassette player...and yes, that's a dirty snot rag that's visible. I was going to crop it out, but then I figured you've seen my manboobs. You've about seen it all...and um, no, you don't have to worry.
_________________________________________________
If you give a whooptie freaking do, vote for this post on Humor-Blogs.com.
There’s nothing more exciting than seeing an old bird dog on a point or a beautiful buck in the crosshairs of your rifle or hearing the whistle of wings of ducks, doves, or geese flying overhead. Yet after the last bird is picked and the trophy is hung on the wall, the excitement doesn’t last and the meaning slips away again. Author and avid hunter Bob Green knows there are millions of hunters who come up empty in life, their relationships suffer, and sometimes their families fall apart. In God’s Crosshairs is an easy-to-read daily devotional for all hunters and outdoorsmen. If life has ever made you feel like the prey instead of the hunter, maybe it’s time to change your position. Maybe God keeps trying to set his crosshairs on you, but like the wary old buck, you keep avoiding Him and hiding. It’s time to plan the best strategy of all, quietly resting In God’s Crosshairs.
