So my car's a piece of shit, let's make
that clear. It's a 2003 Hyundai Elantra, and if you know anything
about cars (I don't), that apparently means that it was constructed
from industrial waste and has about a lifespan of a fortnight. I
think it's a suitable car for me because it looks like a fairly nice
car but it runs like absolute shit, which is a perfect metaphor for
the kind of person I am. I remember one particular ordeal where I
was driving home at night and the radiator cracked while I was on the
highway. It looked like something underneath my hood blew up, and
going 70 miles an hour at night while this is happening when my phone
just died had me swearing loud enough to be heard over traffic. As
of late it was leaking oil underneath the car (another suitable
metaphor for myself since I have a hemorrhoid), and after getting it
taken in, they fixed the leak but ANOTHER leak showed up because of a
faulty oil cap. I don't know if any of this is actually true and if
I'm explaining it correctly because again, I don't know anything
about cars and a gear nut could be reading this and have his brain
melted in a way that nerds would have their brains melted watching an
episode of The Big Bang Theory.
So it was taken into the shop again and
I still had school this morning. So instead, since my dad's on
vacation, I got to take his 1986 Camry to school. My dad's nickname
for it is the “ghetto sled.” I don't know if any of you people
have seen this car. Go google it, I can wait. Or I can post it
here.
Mine looks worse. The windshield is
cracked, and the paintjob is completely faded to the point that it
looks like matte, which means it's like driving a bigger and even
uglier Nintendo DSi. This car is the definition of a death trap. The
doors are thin enough that I felt like if I kicked them hard enough
that I could get my foot through them. That if it even grazed a big
rig, it would be sucked into it and ground up into metal confetti.
It feels like driving a sand castle, where the slightest contact with
anything means dissintegration. And apparently, I'm not the only
person who thought this.
While I drove to school today, I
noticed something... odd. People were going around me. I checked
the speedometer. “Huh,” I thought. “I'm going the speed
limit. Hell, I'm going over it (unless my family's reading this, in
which case I'm going the speed limit). Maybe I have a lot of smog
coming out the back?” I rolled down my window to check, emphasis
on the word “roll” because the car had those cranks that you
turn. That is what kind of archaic machinery rests in this car. I
never thought that I, that we would become spoiled enough as a
technologically-driven culture that I could be capable of missing
buttons that rolled the windows up or down. But... there was no
smog. People were simply afraid of this car. I mean I couldn't
blame them; I go to school in a town filled with rich and entitled
white kids. If your car is anything older than a decade, then
chances are you came from that fucking ghetto in Oakland and you were
going to menace society with your car's sharp edges and flat paint
job. I drove a car that was older than most of the people going to
my college, by all means I shouldn't even have the money to be going
to school if this tin box was the best I could afford. You stuck
out, and people were disgusted yet strangely fascinated with you. It
would be as if a black man went to Japan; people would be horrified
that some Not-Japanese person is roaming the street, but look at him.
He's a product of a lost era.
This discrimination didn't stop when I
got to school, either. I got to school early, so the parking lot was
empty. I wanted to park away a bit from the campus because of my
shame that I'm driving this angular death machine, so I got my shit
out and went to class. Now usually the parking lot's filled up when
I'm going home because of classes later in the day. Around my car,
was a perfect U-shape of empty parking spaces. ...nobody wanted to
be near my car. Probably due to an insurance liability, but Jesus
Christ. Not that I would know if they dinged it anyway, it doesn't
have an alarm system. Or doors that worked. The driver's door did
not work on the outside. You had to open it from the inside, which
meant other doors had to be unlocked, and then you had to open the
driver's door from the inside of the car. I cannot begin to explain
to you how incriminating this looks in practice. Other people could
because of the afformentioned empty parking spaces around me so that
God and everybody could see.
Now despite all the shit that I've
given this car, I enjoyed driving it to school. For one, there's a
reason that this car is still being driven after 27 years, and that's
because it actually runs like a fucking champ. What this car looks
like on the outside is what my car would look like on the inside; it
feels like driving on a baby's ass compared to my car that winces
and screams with every bump I hit. And I say that not to imply that
I've run over any children before, even though I would wholly admit
to doing so otherwise. And secondly, you just feel happy driving
this car. Humbled, even. Because it is a hate magnet. Every driver
around you turns into an asshole when you drive this because they
look down on you and they avoid you like your car contains a
virtulent plague. All the hatred and frustration you feel towards
people being assholish drivers, any possibility of self-doubt you
have about your skills of a driver are out the window because you
know it's everybody else's fault for hating the living shit out of
you while you drive this car.
Though now that I think about it, that
might be a bad thing since I would imagine in the ghetto this would
reflect upon everybody until the anger just reached critical mass and
they'd all start shooting and killing each other like a bunch of
uncivilized niggers. ...actually given the presence and prestige of
cars in the ghetto, I think I just might be on to something. I'll
get back to you on this.
