Cars

All the cars I've owned before

WARNING: This is a work in progress. I thought I could do this in an expeditious manner, but I am way wrong. This shit takes forever to write. I am almost done though. I think I only have 3 more to do.
Click on a bookmark to read all about it
Otis
Hood-less (The Crapi)
The Green Hornet
SHITTTO
The Blue Bullet
Skeeter
The Buddy Van
The Beamer
Henry
Goldina

Me and SHITTTO, September 1990

Name: Otis
1981 Dodge Omni
Years owned: 1986-1988
The magnificent Dodge Omni!!! Is there anything else that needs to be said about this vehicle. I think the name says it all. What the hell does the name "Omni" mean anyway, is it short for "omnipresent"? I sure hope not, because being everywhere all the time would undoubtedly cause traffic "accidents".
In 1986, I had the pleasure of representing my high school on a TV trivia show called "On the Spot". It was hosted by an "omnipresent" game show host named Larry Blackmar. Well, I ended up winning and I got a hefty $1000 check for my smart-assedness. Well, I was 16 years old, so the only thing I could think of to do was buy a sweet ride. The only problem with this plan is that $1000 did not have the purchasing power in 1986 as it did in, say, 1920. So I decided to settle for a less than sweet ride, and when I say "less than sweet ride", I mean, a "shitty" ride. I found my 1981 Omni for $600 at a car dealer and then immediately bought one month worth of insurance with the remaining $400. I am not sure why we called it "Otis", but for some reason, it just seemed to fit.
Shitty ride or not, I finally had wheels.
Times I had sex in this car: 0 (what can I say, I was (is) a dork)
Times I wrecked this car: 1 (I repaired it with duct tape)
Times I fit 16 people into this car: 1
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Name: I don't think I named it. I was too busy knowing everything and looking cool. Eventually, I called it Hood-less. Oh yeah, sometimes I called it "The Crapi."1976 Mercury Capri
Years owned: 1988 - 1989
I loved this car. It was fast. It had a 2.8 liter V-6 in it and was probably not a good idea for me, a 17 year old shift manager at Taco Bell (I know, I know, I was terribly awesome), to be in command of such raw power. My Dad acquired the vehicle and gave it to me about 3 months before I graduated from high school. I had to make monthly payments to him until I graduated, when he just gave it to me as a present. I had it all, shitty job, fast car, uninterested girlfriend, high school diploma...I did not think it could get any better. One day, I was driving down a heavily traffic-light laden boulevard when a truck in front of me stopped at a red light. Now, trying to look cool is a full time job (at least for me it was), and I failed to notice the obvious red brake lights looming in the lane ahead. As you can guess, I rear-ended the truck. I was not hurt physically, but I felt like a total dumb-shit. The front end was dicked up and the hood was bent at a 45 degree angle but otherwise the car was still drivable. I drove the car home and removed the hood and bent it back straight. I reattached the hood to the car and found that it would no longer latch closed. I got some bungee cord and fastened it down so it would not fly up while I was driving. No problem. One day I needed to add oil and I forgot to re-attach the bungee cord. Later when I left for work, I got about a 1/2 mile down the road and the hood violently flew up, hit the windshield, and ripped off the car and sailed up into the air. After I shit my pants, I stopped and looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the hood come crashing down on the road behind me. It's a damn good thing that no one was behind me.
After the "hood" incident, I could not get the hood back on the car, so I drove hood-less for a while. I thought I looked cool before, but I was dead wrong. Driving sans hood makes you look like a rebel. Not just any rebel, I was the embodiment of bad boy rebel-ness. I changed my name for a short time to "Rebel McCoolio" (Note to self: Sue the rapper Coolio for unauthorized use of my name). If I had a nickel for all the women that threw themselves at me once they saw Hood-less and I driving down the road, I think I would have something like negative 400 nickels.
But I digress. At the time, I lived in Oregon (State motto: "Hooray for hippies and rain") and I have, on occasion, been witness to a strange phenomenon the natives call "rain". Well, when you drive around a car without a hood, while at the same time the sky is leaking with this so called "rain", bad things start to happen. Things like overheating, and belt-slippage, etc. Anyway, It was all downhill after that.
Times I had sex in this car: 1 (Woo-Hoo, I finally reached the sex in a car milestone)
Times I wrecked this car: Just once. (I only had to experience that lesson one time)
Times I almost killed someone with a flying car hood: 1
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Name: The Green Hornet1972 AMC Hornet Sport-a-bout
Years owned: 1989
I think this is the coolest car I have ever owned. The American Motor Company (AMC), makers of tremendous auto classics like the Pinto, and the Pacer, really came up big when they introduced, to a public full of cautiously optimistic car buyers, the car to beat all cars. I am, of course, talking about the Hornet Sport-a-bout. I bought this car for $200 and let me tell you, it was a bargain. It even came with 2 boxes of "extra" parts.
I think the number one coolest thing about this car was the fact that it was a 3-speed manual transmission, with the gear shift on the steering-wheel column. I am aware now that this was commonplace back in the 50's and 60's but I had never seen anything like that before, and I can tell you, I thought it was better than Christmas. So, as you can imagine, I spent most of my time cruising up and down the street showing girls my 3-speed column knob, while at the same time racking up cool points.
I had my share of problems with it. I noticed one day that the car had no power. It was as if it was only running on 4 of the 6 cylinders available. I checked under the hood, removed the top engine cover part thingy (tell me if I get too technical), and found that one of the "rocker arms" was broken. It seemed that one of the "push rods" had broken it (damn push rods). Well, I immediately went to my trusty box of "extra" parts and found four unused rocker arms. After I pissed myself from excitement (I lived in the country, it was a slow day), I installed a new rocker arm and replaced the cover thing. The car ran great for about a month, then another rocker arm broke. I don't know why, but the push rods and rocker arms didn't get along to well.
It was a pretty big car, but no one wanted to sit in the back due to an exhaust leak. I first noticed when me and a couple of friends went cruising. One guy was in the front, and one in the back. The one in the back started bitching about the smell and then, for some reason, he got very sleepy. I did not think much of it since, after he fell asleep, he stopped bitching.
After the funeral of friend 2, I was sitting on the couch at home watching TV when I saw a public service announcement about Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Oh well, live and learn.
Ok, OK, this last part did not happen, but there was an exhaust leak and my friends always bitched about it, but I swear, no one ever died.
I sold the car after I ran out of rocker arms. CURSE YOU DAMN PUSH RODS!!!!
Times I had sex in this car: 1
Times I wrecked this car: 0
Times I had to pick up a large produce shipment for work and had to drive it with two cases of seedless grapes on my lap: 1
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Name: I never named this one, but I will make one up now...Hmmmm, let me think...I've got it!!! How about: "Stank Hardcore Insectile Teutonic Traffic Traversing Object", or "S.H.I.T.T.T.O" for short.
1976 Volkswagen Beetle
Years Owned: 1990
I bought this car after the Green Hornet went to shit. I think I got it for like $500. It worked well and was very easy to repair. I had some water pump/radiator problems with the Capri so I was relieved and excited (yes, actually excited) when I learned that this car did not have a radiator or water pump. One of the coolest things about this car is that the gear shift knob was actually a brass doorknob. It was there when I bought it and it looked ultra-bitchin', so I left it thinking it would elevate my "cool factor" back to the level it was when I was driving Hoodless. Guess what, that did not happen, but the car was reliable. About 9 months before I joined the Air Force, The brakes went out. The emergency brake still worked barely so I drove slow and kept a keen eye on the traffic lights. When I had to stop, I would yank up hard on the emergency brake about a half mile before the light so that I could stop in time. Well, after a couple of months, I felt I had mastered the skill of VMWAM (Vehicle Manipulation Without Arresting Mechanisms, soon to be a Bachelor of Arts program at Goodmeat University) so I decided to sell it.
Times I had sex in this car: 1 (It was difficult)
Times I wrecked this car: 0 (There is a first for everything)
Times I tired to impress chicks with a brass doorknob: 4,000,000
Times I actually impressed chicks with a brass doorknob: 0, well, maybe 1, Gloria thought it was cool and now we are married...Coincidence, I think not.
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Name: The Blue Bullet1983 Chevy Citation
Years Owned: 1990
I bought this vehicle from a friend of mine. He is the one that came up with the name "The Blue Bullet". No doubt about it, the car was blue, but it sure as hell was not a bullet. If I had to pick an appropriate name, I would call the "The Blue piece of shit that has been molded into a vague car shape".
I only had this car for a few months. I got rid of it when I joined the Air Force. I ended up giving it to another friend of mine, and I don't know what happened to it after that. Driving this car was like driving a vampire, but instead of sucking blood, it sucked cool. In fact, the second you sit down in it, the seats start sucking the cool right out of you. You see, vampire cars don't have teeth (which makes them hard to identify), so they have to use tiny suction cups, invisible to the naked eye, that slowly drain the coolness out of your ass. Luckily, for me, I has coolness to spare. In fact, It was at this time that I started to donate all my extra cool to less-fortunate, homeless vampire cars. You might say, "Brooks/John, there is no such thing as vampire cars, let alone, homeless vampire cars." Well, I can tell you that there is. Its is just kept secret by the Chevrolet auto-moguls so that people will continue to buy their cars. If you do a search on Google, you probably not find much, although, if you do a search on say, "whale anus", you would undoubtedly get thousands of sites. That is just how the internet works. Those bastards at Chevrolet will stop at nothing to keep this a secret. I urge you to visit the Chevrolet website and give them a piece of your mind.
Speaking of piece, oh yeah, this car was a piece of shit.
Times I had sex in this car: 0 (The reason? See fact 3)
Times I wrecked this car: 0
Times I filled up the entire backseat with garbage from eating in the car: 1
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Name: Skeeter (I have no idea how it got this name. I am in control of nothing.)1991 Hyundai Excel
Years Owned: 1991-1999
Good old Skeeter. This is the first new car I ever bought. I am no haggler, so I went into the Hyundai dealership in San Angelo, TX and told them I wanted to buy a car. The salesman started vibrating like tuning forks upon hearing this, but they calmed down enough to actually sell me a car. Within one hour, I was the proud owner of a small car. We drove the hell out of this car. We drove it from San Angelo, TX, to Portland, OR and then back to Austin, TX. It only took me 2 days after I got it to spill an entire 64 ounce Big Gulp full of Coke onto the floorboards. Ahh, those were the days.
I actually had a trailer hitch installed on it. When we had to move from Austin, TX, to Sacramento, CA, I decided to see how much renting a truck would be. Well, Gloria and I were poor and renting an actual truck was a tad out of our price range. I ended up getting the biggest trailer I could afford and had the trailer hitch installed. It was a long drive, especially with a loaded trailer that weighed 2000 pounds behind us, but we made it. One thing I learned, putting a trailer hitch on a car that small and towing a loaded trailer greatly reduces the engine life of said car.
I really did not have that many problems with it. I had to replace the water pump twice. The second time I decided to do it myself and I tell you, I will never do that again. Bastards at Hyundai hide the water pump under the timing belt. One day, it took me 8 hours to fix it. At the time, we lived in England and anything I needed auto parts-wise had to be ordered from the States. I finally got the water pump in the mail and set to work. I soon realized the timing belt was in the way (dirty Korean sons-a-bitches), and the bolts holding it on were not compatible with the tools I had. I accidentally dropped one of the bolts into the timing belt holder thingy. No big deal, I would just drive to the service station and buy the correct tool. Well, let me tell you, NEVER drive a car with anything in the timing belt holder thingy. I got halfway to the store when the bolt I dropped slid into the timing belt and got carried up into the timing gears where it promptly shredded the timing belt. Do you know what a car sounds like when the timing belt shreds? Well, it sounds like a bunch of bolts put into a blender set on puree, but only for a second, after that, you don't hear anything at all. That's because the car stops moving.
Now I had two problems. I still did not have the water pump installed, but now I needed a new timing belt. I had to wait two weeks for the timing belt to get mailed to me. I finally got it and walked out to where the car was and fixed it. It took me 8 hours to get the new water pump installed. It probably would not have taken so long, if it had not been for the timing belt issue. I also did not have a timing light, so re-timing the car was difficult to say the least. I ended up just guessing where top dead center was until it ran smoothly. (Sorry, if you don't know what top dead center is, look it up. I can't explain it in an understandable way)
I also had to replace a fuel pump. That sucked worse than the water pump. For some reason, the jokers in the auto making industry decided it would be funny to put the fuel pump INSIDE the fuel tank. HAHAHA MOTHER FUCKERS, THAT SURE IS A FUNNY JOKE!!! Anyway, it took me 4 days to fix that, but I got it eventually.
One good thing about my automotive misfortunes, I now know what NOT to do when installing a water pump on a 1991 Hyundai Excel named Skeeter.
I did not mention much about being cool in this section. I figured that once you read that I actually owned a 1991 Hyundai Excel, my coolness would be proven. Owning one is not only cool, it is classy as well.
Note: The following paragraph is a true. Only the names have been changed to protect the reputation of those involved. Before you start to think anything weird, let me just say the the individual identified as "Hooty" in the following paragraph was/is, indeed a milktastic female)
I did have sex in this car one time. One of the long trips we made in this car involved myself, an Air Force friend of mine named Sean, and another individual who I will call "Hooty". I was riding in the back with "Hooty" while Sean drove. We were driving past Lake Shasta in California when, "Hooty" and I had the brilliant idea of having sex. Well, let me tell you, it was not easy pretending to be asleep while trying to have sex in a car that small.
You know, some things you only have to try once...
Times I had sex in this car: 1 (See above)
Times I wrecked this car: 0
Times I shredded a timing belt : 1
Times I used one of Gloria's crafty milk cans to hold gas so I could replace a fuel pump: 1
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Name: The Buddy Van1977 Volkswagen Bus
Years Owned: 1993-1994
I take back the earlier comment I made about the Green Hornet being the coolest car I have ever owned. At the time, it was, but after acquiring this Volkswagen bus, that all changed.
This vehicle, named "The Buddy Van", was so named because a few buddies of mine created an un-official club, creatively called "The Buddy Club", and this vehicle was our un-official preferred mode of transportation.
This van had everything. It had a sink with a working electric faucet, a backseat that turned into a bed, some cabinets, some netting to go around the windows to keep the bugs out when you were sleeping with the windows open, little bumpy thingies on the underside of the steering wheel to avoid hand slippage, pot leaf bumper stickers, and much more cool shit. It was made for camping, and since I was so prepared to go camping (and because God hates me), I never got the opportunity to go camping. I ended up just using the van to go back and forth to work, while at the same time, trying to impress people with my working electric faucet. One thing I always wanted to do, but never had the money for, was to replace the water in the reservoir under the sink and replace it with something like Hawaiian Punch.
Damn Hawaiian Punch people, getting us hooked on their sweet nectar and then jacking up the price. Which reminds me. The jerks at Hawaiian Punch have all that money, but don't have the cash to make a worthy website. Don't believe me, check it out here. It looks like the suits at Hawaiian Punch need to have my Oregonian boot inserted into their collective Hawaiian asses. You know, I bet that the board members at Hawaiian Punch inc. are not even Hawaiian.
Hang on a sec, I have to check something
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....
.....
.....
Ok, I'm back. Guess what, Hawaiian Punch is owned by Dr. Pepper/7up inc. Just as I thought. There is no Hawaiian influence in Hawaiian Punch. What the hell is this world coming to?
Ok, I kind of got off the subject, anyways, The Buddy Van, even with the terribly obvious Hawaiian Punch deficiency, was still a sweet ride.
Oh yeah, one more thing, the Buddy Van also had COAT HOOKS in one of the cabinets.
Times I had sex in this car: 1 (It had a bed, of course I did)
Times I wrecked this car: 0
Times I put Hawaiian Punch in the sink reservoir : 0 (hind site is 20/20)
Times "Rebel Yell" tape was played in the dashboard cassette player: 9,000 (Billy Idol rules)
Times someone did actual research concerning Hawaiian Punch while writing something about a 1977 Volkswagen Bus: 1
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Name: The Beamer1985 BMW 520i
Years Owned: 1995-1998
I can actually say that we owned a BMW. The only thing is, BMW's are a dime a dozen in Europe. I bought this one for $600, I think, when I was stationed in England (Country slogan: "You bet it's windy"). It was a British specification model meaning that the big round thing that tells the wheels which way to point was on the right (when I say right, I mean wrong) side. This did not take that long to get used to. I was worried when I bought it, thinking that since the steering wheel was on the right side, that the pedals would be reversed. Thankfully, the clutch was on the left, the brake was in the middle, and the gas was on the right, just like it should be.
On the second day after I bought it, I was driving home late on a Sunday night from some friends house. It was about 11:00pm and since it was November, it was fucked-up cold as hell. I naturally, in true idiot form, was wearing shorts. I was driving on this narrow country road (narrow meaning, wide as a shopping cart) and I came up to a curve. I slowed down and negotiated the curve fine and accelerated as I exited the curve. Well, all of a sudden, some annoying English road spirits sailed into my car and yanked on the wheel, causing me to fishtail. I, thinking quickly, promptly overcorrected and went careening into a ditch on the right side of the road. Now this was no ordinary ditch. This was the Lord High Priestess of all earthen drainage trenches. This ditch was about 6ft deep with about a 6 inches of water at the bottom. Unfortunately, I veered into the ditch on the opposite side of the road and was now, thanks to the hip new positioning of my vehicle, very close to the frigid water at the bottom of this ditch. Ok, I suck at explaining stuff, so here are some crappy pictures
:
One thing I forgot to mention...
I had had knee surgery (ACL reconstruction) about 2 weeks prior to this eventful night, so I was wearing a large brace on my right leg.
Ok, I'm sitting in a car stuck in a deep trench and I can feel water starting to seep in. Moving as fast as I could with a leg that could only bend about 10 degrees, I climbed out the passenger side door. Now I'm out of the car standing on the side of the road, wearing shorts, in November, on a deserted road. There were no doubt teams of English road spirits pointing and laughing at me, but, because of the darkness, I could not see them. I shook my fist in the air at them (DAMN YOU ENGLISH ROAD SPIRITS!!!) and started walking. There had to be a town nearby, and I was going to find it, or freeze.
About 5 minutes after I started walking, a car drove by and slowed to a stop in front of me. I thought, that's it, I'm dead. Some backwoods English hillbilly is going to kill me and do who knows what to my body and I can't even try to get away because of this damn leg brace. It turned out, it was not a murderous English hillbilly (for one thing, not many hills in England). It was a kindly old man with his kindly old wife. They asked me about my predicament and, of course, I told them, in detail what happened while purposefully omitting the part about the road spirits. They took me into the nearest town and there I was able to call a tow truck.
Four hours later, the tow truck arrived. They pulled my car out of the ditch, and took me home. The whole ordeal sucked much ass, but at least I did not die.
Times I had sex in this car: 0 (Did not want English road spirits watching me)
Times I wrecked this car: 1 (DAMN YOU UNDEAD MINIONS!)
Times I accidentally side-swiped a parked car and drove off: 0
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Name: Henry1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo
Years Owned: 1999-Present
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Name: Goldina2001 Hyundai Accent
Years Owned: 2000-Present
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All the cars I've owned before
WARNING: This is a work in progress. I thought I could do this in an expeditious manner, but I am way wrong. This shit takes forever to write. I am almost done though. I think I only have 3 more to do. Click on a bookmark to read all about it Otis Hood-less (The Crapi) The Green Hornet SHITTTO The Blue Bullet Skeeter The Buddy Van The Beamer Henry Goldina	Me and SHITTTO, September 1990

Name: Otis 1981 Dodge Omni Years owned: 1986-1988 The magnificent Dodge Omni!!! Is there anything else that needs to be said about this vehicle. I think the name says it all. What the hell does the name "Omni" mean anyway, is it short for "omnipresent"? I sure hope not, because being everywhere all the time would undoubtedly cause traffic "accidents". In 1986, I had the pleasure of representing my high school on a TV trivia show called "On the Spot". It was hosted by an "omnipresent" game show host named Larry Blackmar. Well, I ended up winning and I got a hefty $1000 check for my smart-assedness. Well, I was 16 years old, so the only thing I could think of to do was buy a sweet ride. The only problem with this plan is that $1000 did not have the purchasing power in 1986 as it did in, say, 1920. So I decided to settle for a less than sweet ride, and when I say "less than sweet ride", I mean, a "shitty" ride. I found my 1981 Omni for $600 at a car dealer and then immediately bought one month worth of insurance with the remaining $400. I am not sure why we called it "Otis", but for some reason, it just seemed to fit. Shitty ride or not, I finally had wheels. Times I had sex in this car: 0 (what can I say, I was (is) a dork) Times I wrecked this car: 1 (I repaired it with duct tape) Times I fit 16 people into this car: 1 Back to top

Name: I don't think I named it. I was too busy knowing everything and looking cool. Eventually, I called it Hood-less. Oh yeah, sometimes I called it "The Crapi." 1976 Mercury Capri Years owned: 1988 - 1989 I loved this car. It was fast. It had a 2.8 liter V-6 in it and was probably not a good idea for me, a 17 year old shift manager at Taco Bell (I know, I know, I was terribly awesome), to be in command of such raw power. My Dad acquired the vehicle and gave it to me about 3 months before I graduated from high school. I had to make monthly payments to him until I graduated, when he just gave it to me as a present. I had it all, shitty job, fast car, uninterested girlfriend, high school diploma...I did not think it could get any better. One day, I was driving down a heavily traffic-light laden boulevard when a truck in front of me stopped at a red light. Now, trying to look cool is a full time job (at least for me it was), and I failed to notice the obvious red brake lights looming in the lane ahead. As you can guess, I rear-ended the truck. I was not hurt physically, but I felt like a total dumb-shit. The front end was dicked up and the hood was bent at a 45 degree angle but otherwise the car was still drivable. I drove the car home and removed the hood and bent it back straight. I reattached the hood to the car and found that it would no longer latch closed. I got some bungee cord and fastened it down so it would not fly up while I was driving. No problem. One day I needed to add oil and I forgot to re-attach the bungee cord. Later when I left for work, I got about a 1/2 mile down the road and the hood violently flew up, hit the windshield, and ripped off the car and sailed up into the air. After I shit my pants, I stopped and looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the hood come crashing down on the road behind me. It's a damn good thing that no one was behind me. After the "hood" incident, I could not get the hood back on the car, so I drove hood-less for a while. I thought I looked cool before, but I was dead wrong. Driving sans hood makes you look like a rebel. Not just any rebel, I was the embodiment of bad boy rebel-ness. I changed my name for a short time to "Rebel McCoolio" (Note to self: Sue the rapper Coolio for unauthorized use of my name). If I had a nickel for all the women that threw themselves at me once they saw Hood-less and I driving down the road, I think I would have something like negative 400 nickels. But I digress. At the time, I lived in Oregon (State motto: "Hooray for hippies and rain") and I have, on occasion, been witness to a strange phenomenon the natives call "rain". Well, when you drive around a car without a hood, while at the same time the sky is leaking with this so called "rain", bad things start to happen. Things like overheating, and belt-slippage, etc. Anyway, It was all downhill after that. Times I had sex in this car: 1 (Woo-Hoo, I finally reached the sex in a car milestone) Times I wrecked this car: Just once. (I only had to experience that lesson one time) Times I almost killed someone with a flying car hood: 1 Back to top

Name: The Green Hornet 1972 AMC Hornet Sport-a-bout Years owned: 1989 I think this is the coolest car I have ever owned. The American Motor Company (AMC), makers of tremendous auto classics like the Pinto, and the Pacer, really came up big when they introduced, to a public full of cautiously optimistic car buyers, the car to beat all cars. I am, of course, talking about the Hornet Sport-a-bout. I bought this car for $200 and let me tell you, it was a bargain. It even came with 2 boxes of "extra" parts. I think the number one coolest thing about this car was the fact that it was a 3-speed manual transmission, with the gear shift on the steering-wheel column. I am aware now that this was commonplace back in the 50's and 60's but I had never seen anything like that before, and I can tell you, I thought it was better than Christmas. So, as you can imagine, I spent most of my time cruising up and down the street showing girls my 3-speed column knob, while at the same time racking up cool points. I had my share of problems with it. I noticed one day that the car had no power. It was as if it was only running on 4 of the 6 cylinders available. I checked under the hood, removed the top engine cover part thingy (tell me if I get too technical), and found that one of the "rocker arms" was broken. It seemed that one of the "push rods" had broken it (damn push rods). Well, I immediately went to my trusty box of "extra" parts and found four unused rocker arms. After I pissed myself from excitement (I lived in the country, it was a slow day), I installed a new rocker arm and replaced the cover thing. The car ran great for about a month, then another rocker arm broke. I don't know why, but the push rods and rocker arms didn't get along to well. It was a pretty big car, but no one wanted to sit in the back due to an exhaust leak. I first noticed when me and a couple of friends went cruising. One guy was in the front, and one in the back. The one in the back started bitching about the smell and then, for some reason, he got very sleepy. I did not think much of it since, after he fell asleep, he stopped bitching. After the funeral of friend 2, I was sitting on the couch at home watching TV when I saw a public service announcement about Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Oh well, live and learn. Ok, OK, this last part did not happen, but there was an exhaust leak and my friends always bitched about it, but I swear, no one ever died. I sold the car after I ran out of rocker arms. CURSE YOU DAMN PUSH RODS!!!! Times I had sex in this car: 1 Times I wrecked this car: 0 Times I had to pick up a large produce shipment for work and had to drive it with two cases of seedless grapes on my lap: 1 Back to top

Name: I never named this one, but I will make one up now...Hmmmm, let me think...I've got it!!! How about: "Stank Hardcore Insectile Teutonic Traffic Traversing Object", or "S.H.I.T.T.T.O" for short. 1976 Volkswagen Beetle Years Owned: 1990 I bought this car after the Green Hornet went to shit. I think I got it for like $500. It worked well and was very easy to repair. I had some water pump/radiator problems with the Capri so I was relieved and excited (yes, actually excited) when I learned that this car did not have a radiator or water pump. One of the coolest things about this car is that the gear shift knob was actually a brass doorknob. It was there when I bought it and it looked ultra-bitchin', so I left it thinking it would elevate my "cool factor" back to the level it was when I was driving Hoodless. Guess what, that did not happen, but the car was reliable. About 9 months before I joined the Air Force, The brakes went out. The emergency brake still worked barely so I drove slow and kept a keen eye on the traffic lights. When I had to stop, I would yank up hard on the emergency brake about a half mile before the light so that I could stop in time. Well, after a couple of months, I felt I had mastered the skill of VMWAM (Vehicle Manipulation Without Arresting Mechanisms, soon to be a Bachelor of Arts program at Goodmeat University) so I decided to sell it. Times I had sex in this car: 1 (It was difficult) Times I wrecked this car: 0 (There is a first for everything) Times I tired to impress chicks with a brass doorknob: 4,000,000 Times I actually impressed chicks with a brass doorknob: 0, well, maybe 1, Gloria thought it was cool and now we are married...Coincidence, I think not. Back to top

Name: The Blue Bullet 1983 Chevy Citation Years Owned: 1990 I bought this vehicle from a friend of mine. He is the one that came up with the name "The Blue Bullet". No doubt about it, the car was blue, but it sure as hell was not a bullet. If I had to pick an appropriate name, I would call the "The Blue piece of shit that has been molded into a vague car shape". I only had this car for a few months. I got rid of it when I joined the Air Force. I ended up giving it to another friend of mine, and I don't know what happened to it after that. Driving this car was like driving a vampire, but instead of sucking blood, it sucked cool. In fact, the second you sit down in it, the seats start sucking the cool right out of you. You see, vampire cars don't have teeth (which makes them hard to identify), so they have to use tiny suction cups, invisible to the naked eye, that slowly drain the coolness out of your ass. Luckily, for me, I has coolness to spare. In fact, It was at this time that I started to donate all my extra cool to less-fortunate, homeless vampire cars. You might say, "Brooks/John, there is no such thing as vampire cars, let alone, homeless vampire cars." Well, I can tell you that there is. Its is just kept secret by the Chevrolet auto-moguls so that people will continue to buy their cars. If you do a search on Google, you probably not find much, although, if you do a search on say, "whale anus", you would undoubtedly get thousands of sites. That is just how the internet works. Those bastards at Chevrolet will stop at nothing to keep this a secret. I urge you to visit the Chevrolet website and give them a piece of your mind. Speaking of piece, oh yeah, this car was a piece of shit. Times I had sex in this car: 0 (The reason? See fact 3) Times I wrecked this car: 0 Times I filled up the entire backseat with garbage from eating in the car: 1 Back to top

Name: Skeeter (I have no idea how it got this name. I am in control of nothing.) 1991 Hyundai Excel Years Owned: 1991-1999 Good old Skeeter. This is the first new car I ever bought. I am no haggler, so I went into the Hyundai dealership in San Angelo, TX and told them I wanted to buy a car. The salesman started vibrating like tuning forks upon hearing this, but they calmed down enough to actually sell me a car. Within one hour, I was the proud owner of a small car. We drove the hell out of this car. We drove it from San Angelo, TX, to Portland, OR and then back to Austin, TX. It only took me 2 days after I got it to spill an entire 64 ounce Big Gulp full of Coke onto the floorboards. Ahh, those were the days. I actually had a trailer hitch installed on it. When we had to move from Austin, TX, to Sacramento, CA, I decided to see how much renting a truck would be. Well, Gloria and I were poor and renting an actual truck was a tad out of our price range. I ended up getting the biggest trailer I could afford and had the trailer hitch installed. It was a long drive, especially with a loaded trailer that weighed 2000 pounds behind us, but we made it. One thing I learned, putting a trailer hitch on a car that small and towing a loaded trailer greatly reduces the engine life of said car. I really did not have that many problems with it. I had to replace the water pump twice. The second time I decided to do it myself and I tell you, I will never do that again. Bastards at Hyundai hide the water pump under the timing belt. One day, it took me 8 hours to fix it. At the time, we lived in England and anything I needed auto parts-wise had to be ordered from the States. I finally got the water pump in the mail and set to work. I soon realized the timing belt was in the way (dirty Korean sons-a-bitches), and the bolts holding it on were not compatible with the tools I had. I accidentally dropped one of the bolts into the timing belt holder thingy. No big deal, I would just drive to the service station and buy the correct tool. Well, let me tell you, NEVER drive a car with anything in the timing belt holder thingy. I got halfway to the store when the bolt I dropped slid into the timing belt and got carried up into the timing gears where it promptly shredded the timing belt. Do you know what a car sounds like when the timing belt shreds? Well, it sounds like a bunch of bolts put into a blender set on puree, but only for a second, after that, you don't hear anything at all. That's because the car stops moving. Now I had two problems. I still did not have the water pump installed, but now I needed a new timing belt. I had to wait two weeks for the timing belt to get mailed to me. I finally got it and walked out to where the car was and fixed it. It took me 8 hours to get the new water pump installed. It probably would not have taken so long, if it had not been for the timing belt issue. I also did not have a timing light, so re-timing the car was difficult to say the least. I ended up just guessing where top dead center was until it ran smoothly. (Sorry, if you don't know what top dead center is, look it up. I can't explain it in an understandable way) I also had to replace a fuel pump. That sucked worse than the water pump. For some reason, the jokers in the auto making industry decided it would be funny to put the fuel pump INSIDE the fuel tank. HAHAHA MOTHER FUCKERS, THAT SURE IS A FUNNY JOKE!!! Anyway, it took me 4 days to fix that, but I got it eventually. One good thing about my automotive misfortunes, I now know what NOT to do when installing a water pump on a 1991 Hyundai Excel named Skeeter. I did not mention much about being cool in this section. I figured that once you read that I actually owned a 1991 Hyundai Excel, my coolness would be proven. Owning one is not only cool, it is classy as well. Note: The following paragraph is a true. Only the names have been changed to protect the reputation of those involved. Before you start to think anything weird, let me just say the the individual identified as "Hooty" in the following paragraph was/is, indeed a milktastic female) I did have sex in this car one time. One of the long trips we made in this car involved myself, an Air Force friend of mine named Sean, and another individual who I will call "Hooty". I was riding in the back with "Hooty" while Sean drove. We were driving past Lake Shasta in California when, "Hooty" and I had the brilliant idea of having sex. Well, let me tell you, it was not easy pretending to be asleep while trying to have sex in a car that small. You know, some things you only have to try once... Times I had sex in this car: 1 (See above) Times I wrecked this car: 0 Times I shredded a timing belt : 1 Times I used one of Gloria's crafty milk cans to hold gas so I could replace a fuel pump: 1 Back to top

Name: The Buddy Van 1977 Volkswagen Bus Years Owned: 1993-1994 I take back the earlier comment I made about the Green Hornet being the coolest car I have ever owned. At the time, it was, but after acquiring this Volkswagen bus, that all changed. This vehicle, named "The Buddy Van", was so named because a few buddies of mine created an un-official club, creatively called "The Buddy Club", and this vehicle was our un-official preferred mode of transportation. This van had everything. It had a sink with a working electric faucet, a backseat that turned into a bed, some cabinets, some netting to go around the windows to keep the bugs out when you were sleeping with the windows open, little bumpy thingies on the underside of the steering wheel to avoid hand slippage, pot leaf bumper stickers, and much more cool shit. It was made for camping, and since I was so prepared to go camping (and because God hates me), I never got the opportunity to go camping. I ended up just using the van to go back and forth to work, while at the same time, trying to impress people with my working electric faucet. One thing I always wanted to do, but never had the money for, was to replace the water in the reservoir under the sink and replace it with something like Hawaiian Punch. Damn Hawaiian Punch people, getting us hooked on their sweet nectar and then jacking up the price. Which reminds me. The jerks at Hawaiian Punch have all that money, but don't have the cash to make a worthy website. Don't believe me, check it out here. It looks like the suits at Hawaiian Punch need to have my Oregonian boot inserted into their collective Hawaiian asses. You know, I bet that the board members at Hawaiian Punch inc. are not even Hawaiian. Hang on a sec, I have to check something .. .... ..... ..... Ok, I'm back. Guess what, Hawaiian Punch is owned by Dr. Pepper/7up inc. Just as I thought. There is no Hawaiian influence in Hawaiian Punch. What the hell is this world coming to? Ok, I kind of got off the subject, anyways, The Buddy Van, even with the terribly obvious Hawaiian Punch deficiency, was still a sweet ride. Oh yeah, one more thing, the Buddy Van also had COAT HOOKS in one of the cabinets. Times I had sex in this car: 1 (It had a bed, of course I did) Times I wrecked this car: 0 Times I put Hawaiian Punch in the sink reservoir : 0 (hind site is 20/20) Times "Rebel Yell" tape was played in the dashboard cassette player: 9,000 (Billy Idol rules) Times someone did actual research concerning Hawaiian Punch while writing something about a 1977 Volkswagen Bus: 1 Back to top

Name: The Beamer 1985 BMW 520i Years Owned: 1995-1998 I can actually say that we owned a BMW. The only thing is, BMW's are a dime a dozen in Europe. I bought this one for $600, I think, when I was stationed in England (Country slogan: "You bet it's windy"). It was a British specification model meaning that the big round thing that tells the wheels which way to point was on the right (when I say right, I mean wrong) side. This did not take that long to get used to. I was worried when I bought it, thinking that since the steering wheel was on the right side, that the pedals would be reversed. Thankfully, the clutch was on the left, the brake was in the middle, and the gas was on the right, just like it should be. On the second day after I bought it, I was driving home late on a Sunday night from some friends house. It was about 11:00pm and since it was November, it was fucked-up cold as hell. I naturally, in true idiot form, was wearing shorts. I was driving on this narrow country road (narrow meaning, wide as a shopping cart) and I came up to a curve. I slowed down and negotiated the curve fine and accelerated as I exited the curve. Well, all of a sudden, some annoying English road spirits sailed into my car and yanked on the wheel, causing me to fishtail. I, thinking quickly, promptly overcorrected and went careening into a ditch on the right side of the road. Now this was no ordinary ditch. This was the Lord High Priestess of all earthen drainage trenches. This ditch was about 6ft deep with about a 6 inches of water at the bottom. Unfortunately, I veered into the ditch on the opposite side of the road and was now, thanks to the hip new positioning of my vehicle, very close to the frigid water at the bottom of this ditch. Ok, I suck at explaining stuff, so here are some crappy pictures : One thing I forgot to mention... I had had knee surgery (ACL reconstruction) about 2 weeks prior to this eventful night, so I was wearing a large brace on my right leg. Ok, I'm sitting in a car stuck in a deep trench and I can feel water starting to seep in. Moving as fast as I could with a leg that could only bend about 10 degrees, I climbed out the passenger side door. Now I'm out of the car standing on the side of the road, wearing shorts, in November, on a deserted road. There were no doubt teams of English road spirits pointing and laughing at me, but, because of the darkness, I could not see them. I shook my fist in the air at them (DAMN YOU ENGLISH ROAD SPIRITS!!!) and started walking. There had to be a town nearby, and I was going to find it, or freeze. About 5 minutes after I started walking, a car drove by and slowed to a stop in front of me. I thought, that's it, I'm dead. Some backwoods English hillbilly is going to kill me and do who knows what to my body and I can't even try to get away because of this damn leg brace. It turned out, it was not a murderous English hillbilly (for one thing, not many hills in England). It was a kindly old man with his kindly old wife. They asked me about my predicament and, of course, I told them, in detail what happened while purposefully omitting the part about the road spirits. They took me into the nearest town and there I was able to call a tow truck. Four hours later, the tow truck arrived. They pulled my car out of the ditch, and took me home. The whole ordeal sucked much ass, but at least I did not die. Times I had sex in this car: 0 (Did not want English road spirits watching me) Times I wrecked this car: 1 (DAMN YOU UNDEAD MINIONS!) Times I accidentally side-swiped a parked car and drove off: 0 Back to top

Name: Henry 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo Years Owned: 1999-Present Back to top

Name: Goldina 2001 Hyundai Accent Years Owned: 2000-Present Back to top

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