When it comes to cars, nothing will ever top Blooey

I was talking last week with my son, the Chrysler rep, about cars we have owned over the years. He makes more money than I do and he has expensive tastes, so most of his cars have been nice ones.

Mine, on the other hand, have all been entrants in one long parade of rolling wrecks; the kindest thing you could say about any of them to date is that none have killed me.

The Van of Death, which finally gave up the ghost last week, was just the most recent in a line of unsafe, under-insured, rusted out heaps that have transported me from Point A to Point B since my 16th birthday. But driving wrecks has never bothered me. I’m not a “car guy” and never have been. I don’t define myself by what I drive and have never felt the need to compensate for anything, even during my mid-life crisis years.

Still, I am an American boy and we’re genetically predisposed to love our cars. So there have been a few over the years to which I grew attached. A 1965 Beetle with a top speed of 45 mph was one. An old Galaxy 500 — previously owned by my grandmother — was another.

But my all-time favorite was Blooey, the 25-year-old Volvo sedan I drove back when my kids still attended elementary school. I purchased Blooey (named for its color, by my daughter) from a guy’s front yard. She cost $68.22, all the cash I had on me at that moment. The car was worth more than that, but it had belonged to the guy’s daughter, long since moved away to school. He just wanted it out of his driveway.

I drove Blooey for four years — that worked out to monthly payments of $1.42. Factor in the fact I rarely carried viable insurance or purchased up-to-date license plates in those days and I was practically driving for free. Occasionally, a cop would notice the expired plates and I’d be forced to pay a fine and “go legal” for a few months before returning to business as usual. Even so, Blooey was a cheap ride.

Dinner trays liberated from one of my old man’s restaurants covered most of the rust holes in the floor, the ones big enough for my kids to fall through at any rate. Aubreii and Jordan would occasionally slide the trays aside to watch the freeway speeding by beneath their feet. My kids were thrill seekers.

I probably could have fixed the floor-holes permanently, but they came in handy at least once. It was during a fierce, summer squall. While newer, safer cars bobbed helplessly in a huge puddle that had formed in a dip in Alpine Avenue, Blooey immediately sank to the bottom where her wheels found purchase and drove us right out again.

Sure, toward the end of Blooey’s long and storied life it took about half a block to bring her to a full stop and she was leaking oil so bad I purchased 10w30 by the gallon, but still, she was a great ride.

A car, I think, is only as good as the adventures you have while driving it, only as good as the places it takes you.

At that, Blooey excelled.

Gentlemen, start your engines. But first, fill out just one more form

Rented my first car last weekend. Since my 16^th birthday, I’ve always had my own wheels, dilapidated though they sometimes were. But a few weeks ago, my Mercury finally cashed in its chips and I have yet to replace it. So when I needed to make a four-day trip out of town, I decided to give the rental place a try.

To paraphrase Jerry Garcia, “What a long, strange trip it was.”

Turns out you can’t just walk into the rental office, say, “Gimme a car,” and drive away, not if you want a decent rate, anyway. To get the best rate, one must go—where else?—online.

There are several “price fixer” sites on the Internet; I tried them all in an effort to save a buck. I finally settled on the one featuring an older, fatter version of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk in their advertising.

I told Captain Kirk what days I would need the car, what type of car I was looking to rent, and how much I wanted to spend.

Now, it’s true that Kirk no longer pilots a starship where no man has gone before, but he still has some pull with car rental companies, apparently, because he was able to find me a fairly decent bargain on a gas-efficient Pontiac not six blocks from my house.

I made my reservation, after which I was taken to a page detailing the items the rental place would need from me. Because I was paying with a debit card, rather than my insanely-high-interest Visa, I would need the following items: 1) a valid driver’s license; 2) proof of insurance; 3) a pay stub showing my current address; 4) a paid receipt from a major utility bill; 5) my birth certificate; 6) my social security card; 7) a pound of my flesh; 8) my first born son; and 9) a quart of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, preferably “Chubby Hubby” or “Cherry Garcia.”

I spent a couple days gathering up all the required documentation, organized it into a loose leaf binder, and then carefully labeled each page according to date, time and subject. After creating an index page, I alphabetized the whole mess for good measure.

When I walked through the doors of the rental place, I was ready. Or so I thought.

Because I moved recently, most of my paperwork still displays my previous address. This frustrated the rental car people no end.

“But my driver’s license has my current address,” I said. “So does…um…this check! And my phone bill!”

“It’s not the same as the address on your insurance information,” the rental guy noted.

“I know,” I said. “That’s my old address.”

“And this ice cream is praline pecan parfait,” said the rental guy. “It’s supposed to be ‘Chubby Hubby’ or ‘Cherry Garcia.’”

“The market was out of those,” I explained.

The exchange continued for about 20 minutes, in more or less this vein. Finally, making it quite clear he strongly suspected I was an illegal alien or terrorist of some kind who would no doubt fill the car with explosives before parking it in front of a Chucky Cheese’s somewhere, the rental guy handed over the keys.

One short retina scan, fingerprinting, and cursory cavity search later, I was driving away.

The rental guy seemed a little surprised when I brought the unexploded car back four days later.

“Now that you have me on file, I guess we won’t have to go through all that next time I rent from you, right?” I asked.

“Oh, no, we’ll still need all the same information every time,” he said, smiling.

I’m going car shopping tomorrow.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

AAFDA the answer to Gremlin Days

Ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go right, when even the simplest task seems insurmountable and every little speed bump looks like Kilimanjaro?

Sure you have. Everyone has days like that. Days when the hammer hits the thumb more often than the nail, when the snow starts to fall as you pull into the golf course parking lot, when the last $60-off iPod is sold seconds before you arrive at the big box store.

Over the years—owing in part to the fact I seem to have more “gremlin” days than most folks—I’ve developed a system for dealing with them, a five-stage process I call AAFDA (Annoyance, Aggravation, Frustration, Disbelief, Acceptance).

Last Friday was an AAFDA day. It went like this:

STAGE ONE: Annoyance—The drive to my weekend job (marine biologist) took about an hour. As I was arriving at the job site, all the electrical systems in my usually reliable truck went kablooey. Pulling into the job site parking lot, the engine died as well. I turned the key, but nothin’. No click-click, no vroom-vroom, no grinding noises.

Nevertheless, work waited. I opted to deal with the problem when the evening’s job (cataloging Organ Pipe corals off the shores of Papua, New Guinea) was finished.

STAGE TWO: Aggravation—Ten minutes into the job (see coral thing, above) a key piece of equipment broke, an 18-inch subwoofer that costs about $200 to fix. My pay for Friday’s job was $150, leaving me $50 in the hole. (Why I need an 18-inch subwoofer to catalog coral is difficult to explain; just run with me on this one.)

STAGE THREE: Frustration—We finished up around 2 a.m. and, along with a couple co-workers who know something about cars, we investigated the dark recesses beneath my pickup’s hood. It was raining, of course. No car has ever broken down on a beautiful day at the beach alongside the Texas Bikini Auto Mechanics Team’s tour bus.

After much prodding, poking, wrench turning and rain cursing, the consensus was: The truck was broken. Probably the a) alternator, b) battery, c) ignition coil, d) plug wires, or e) bad karma.

A couple co-workers offered to drive me home, which lead to…

STAGE FOUR: Amazement—Dripping wet, exhausted, cold and disheartened, I squeezed into the back seat of my co-worker’s minuscule, compact car, a space better suited to a gerbil than a human being.

As I struggled to find a place for my knees, other than on either side of my face, a sound like ripping cloth filled the car’s interior. As it turned out, the sound was ripping cloth—the seat of my pants splitting gleefully up the seam. My co-workers, cultured gentlemen that they are, laughed until Mountain Dew shot out their nostrils.

STAGE FIVE: Acceptance—The ride home was a long one. The guys waited in the driveway, hi-beam headlights blazing, as I walked, tattered butt in hands, to my front door. My head held proudly erect, I turned and waved goodbye, using at least one finger.

They drove off laughing, anxious to find someone with whom to share the story. (This turned out to be everyone, as I discovered the following evening.)

But I no longer cared. I had reached the final AAFDA stage—acceptance.

Climbing into bed beside The Lovely Mrs. Taylor, I settled in for a good night’s sleep, confident the next day would be better.

“How was your night?” Mrs. T asked drowsily.

“The usual,” I said.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said, drifting back to sleep.

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or the name of a good tailor, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com/advancenewspapers.