Because if you do, it will get broken into. Ten times. America, your people might kill more than ours but we will rob you blind first. The first time was not long after I bought the car. As I mentioned, I got it from a boy racer who had invested in the latest stereo system. It was one of those that you could pull out and take with you when you left the car so that no one would steal it. So, every time I got out of the car, I would pull it out and put it under the driver's seat. Where all the criminals knew it was kept. So, they would smash my little quarter glass, reach under the seat and take it. They would also take a selection of my cassette tapes - I lost the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack tragically in the first wave. I find it offensive that they left some behind. You don't steal my stuff AND question my taste.
So, the insurance company and I would replace it. I went through two of those. With additional cassette casualties - James Reyne,* Living Colour, Terence Trent D'Arby. Mints. Various items of clothing. They did however leave my sunglasses. So now, they are calling into question my music taste and my fashion sense. I am being victimized from all directions.
Round two was the stereo with the detachable face. You just took the face off and put it in your handbag. Or under the seat. Apparently they knew about that one too. So after two of those, I finally learned my lesson and stopped putting things of value under the seat. Also, I moved to another city to evade the criminals. Who came with me. So, now they would just break into the car and look around at the complete emptiness of the interior. Apparently they needed to be in the car to determine this, they couldn't just look through the window. By now, the locks on both the passenger and driver sides were completely buggered so I carried a hammer in my glove box. When I had to get in the car, I would wiggle the lock three times and climb in through the passenger side. Then I could use the claw part of the hammer to lift the lock up on the driver side so I could exit with some dignity. After my dignified exit, I would then pound the lock down with the hammer, throw it in the car and walk off with a dignified air.
Eventually Dad got sick of me having to replace the quarter glass window so he replaced it with perspex. Take that criminals, now see if you can break my window and steal my stuff. So, they just took the whole car instead. Problem solved. Take that Special K and Special Dad. It wasn't just any old thief that finally took the car. It was a thief recently out of prison with a broken leg in a full cast. I was working in a bank in Auckland at the time when a customer came running in to ask if anyone owned a red Ford hatchback. Someone had just been seen smashing the window and driving off in it, with the police in hot pursuit.
After he hit a wall, he got out and climbed over it. Apparently forgetting his broken leg. Which hampered him at the bottom on the other side. Which is where the police found him.
*Who here hasn't sung along to James Reyne? Slave, One More River, She Don't Like That. Good job, Australia
So I bought my first car. All by myself. A Ford Laser Sport Hatchback, 1984, I think. In bright red. With my student loan money which is probably illegal but since my year was the first year of student loans, there were no rules! And now we all still owe the government a lot of money. Except me, I just paid mine off. Goodbye retirement.
Anyway, let’s back off from the bitterness. I bought the car from a boy racer who met me at a petrol station for the exchange. I know there was paperwork involved, we both signed a napkin stating that I was buying the car for $5,000* and he was selling it and he’d left the ownership papers in the glovebox. Sort of how we do our taxes in New Zealand. Just write down on a bit of paper what you think you earned and owe and drop it off to the IRD when you feel like it. None of this, taxes must be done and posted to the IRS by April 15th or you will be killed, business.
This was a boy racer, who apparently didn’t realize that a hatchback is not really a boy racing kind of car but maybe he didn’t know because the Fast and the Furious hadn’t come out yet. And I wasn’t going to tell him, I was too busy worrying about how negotiating absolutely nothing out of the deal would be impacted by giving him comments like that. So, I ended up with a car that had Tweeters in the front** and in the back, 4 sub woofers bolted into the piece that is supposed to lift up when you open the hatch but no longer did. Meaning you could hardly slide anything into the boot (trunk) and had to go in through the back seats. I knew nothing about woofing and tweeting, I just knew my car had a heartbeat all of its own and people would turn and look when I drove along. Which is not my thing at all but I really had no clue on how to control the bass.
So, now I have my brand new car - only problem is I'm on the other side of town and I need to drive it home. And it's a manual (stick shift***). And I've never driven one before. Can't be that hard. I know when the engine starts to roar, you're supposed to change gears. I did not know about that pedally thing you're supposed to push down at the same time as you move the sticky thing. Picked that up real fast. Did not entirely master the moving smoothly through the gears piece. Not until 4 years later. I sweated a lot on that drive home. Mostly on a hill where I sat at the lights for 4 rounds with people tooting (beeping) at me, me revving the engine and trying to make it go forward and up but just going a lot of backward and down. In the end, I put on my hazard lights, took a time out and cried while the cars drove round me and gave me the finger (flipped me the bird). Eventually, I took a running leap at the hill and was up and over. Got back to my flat (apartment) and the car stayed in the driveway for 3 days. I was traumatised (traumatized).
But, I got back on the horse**** and figured it out. There was a lot of riding the clutch but that would become someone else's problem later on.
Did I mention that it had these sporty spotlights? For a while. Sometimes when you are driving in the rain and you are stopped at the lights, your foot will slip and you will be in gear and the car will hop forward into the next car. And then one of your lights will face down. And the wires will fall out. And there will be a person waiting at the bus stop, yelling "I saw it. I'll be a witness". And you can't drive over him because he is intellectually disabled and just trying to be a good citizen*****.
This car would actually be the bane of my life, through no fault of it's own. But wait, there's more. Just not today.
*I actually think this is what I paid for it which means I paid way too much, I don’t even think I negotiated at all. Which is why I now work as a negotiator and only ever use the word “no”.
**I keep wanting to write Twitters which now seems a much more common word than Tweeters. And I don’t really ever twitter my tweets much.
***I had no idea how much translating from New Zealand to American was involved when talking about cars. Apologies to my South Korean and Malaysian readers (up to 23 - what?). All I know is - bbo bbo and kentang. Neither of which has anything to do with cars unless your are kissing a potato in one.
****Which was good that I had a horse since I didn't want to drive my car.
*****But you want to. Just a little bit.
