Because
it wasn't bad enough I was not especially cool in high school, I also had to
drive my elderly aunt's old-vomited-spinach-colored car. A car she could not
have been saddened to part with. A car that was only 4 years younger than I. By
the way, when you're in high school, a car that's 4 years younger than you is
not vintage enough to be awesome, by any standard. And though I don't remember
much from the era when this car was new, I'm still fairly sure Old Vomited
Spinach was not a cool color then, either. Probably not even
in Europe.
As my friend
chuckled during the retelling, that terrible drive home unfolded in my mind’s eye:
my not-yet-classic announcing to everyone within a 2-block radius that The Uncool One had arrived. Mile
after mile. Stoplight after stoplight. How could my house have gotten so very
far away?
When your
horn is stuck, everyone around you first reacts with annoyance, usually followed by
aggression. If you're lucky, the other drivers look directly into your
mortified face and realize you have no choice in this matter, so they don't run
you off the road. Then the ridicule pours down like a cold, November rain.
Steve Martin
fans might remember a scene from The Jerk
in which another uncool protagonist climbs behind the wheel of an old beater, in his case to escape a sniper attack on a gas
station. With no tires, the Jerk's car grinds slowly down the road on its wheel rims. Driving while my horn was stuck felt exactly like that
painfully slow getaway. Adding insult to injury, the Jerk's car was also my
first: a car that will live in infamy. Dodge Dart Swinger.
