I rolled over the top of Three-Mile Hill outside of Donegal. It was a clear night. I was squinting to figure out if I could see Pittsburgh.
I was in the left lane. A big buck hopped over the jersey barrier and landed in front of me. He lifted off to jump again, and I hit him at 50 mpg.
My first thought was fuck me, this is going to be expensive.
The poor beast didn't die. When I walked back up to look at him, he was still trying to get up and run away. Both back legs were broken. And judging by the antler puncture in my fender, his neck was probably broken too.
A guy stopped and mentioned that we should call the state police to put the deer out of it's misery. As soon as he finished his sentence, a Ford pickup pulled onto the shoulder.
The driver got out with a handgun, walked over to the deer, and shot it in the head. It twitched around for a few seconds before it went stiff.
"Somebody'll pick at up and eat 'em," he said.
The hit did bad things to the tiny gay convertible.
Totally buckled the hood and passenger fender. Fortunately, it looks like the radiator took most of the hit and the rest of the insides weren't hurt. More fortunately, the deer wasn't high enough in the air to go through my canvas top. And now I'm car-less again.
This leads me to my horrible relationship with motor vehicles.
In 2008, the Dirt Mobilis didn't pass smog inspection. It had 245,000 miles, and I didn't want to fix it. So I sold it for a grand.
I didn't have a car all winter, then I bought a lifted SUV because my little economy car polluted too much. Ironic, yes. The government made me do it.
I lovingly named the monster the Grumbler, and it promptly blew boiling antifreeze all over my hands.
I fixed it, then it blew boiling antifreeze all over my hands again.
I fixed it again, and the clutch blew up. I couldn't get under it until the snow melted.
I drove it out West, and it blew boiling antifreeze all over my hands a third time.
I sold the Grumbler last January. I didn't find the Cabrio until March.
I spent one blissful month driving the Cabrio. Then transmission exploded during the Big Gay WV Adventure. It took almost two months to fix.
I drove it out west, and got a flat tire in the the desert in July.
And now I'm stuck again.
5 comments:
Car payments or repair bills - pick your evil. Unless of course you just happen to have the cash for a new or barely used car.
weren't there five days in the stage race? Didn't you get to go for free because you were supposed to blog about all of them?
Hey commenter #2, thanks for your shadowy internet concern. Stage 5 will be in the next issue of Dirt Rag.
that sucks.
you can repair the cabrio for much less than $500. check out vwvortex. MKIII parts are everywhere and cheap.
Dough, you're a smart man. Bolting body pieces on myself hadn't even occurred to me
Post a Comment