Previously on The Bug Chronicles: My obsession with Vespas is preceded by an obsession with classic VW Bugs, developed during one heckuva boring summer in Arizona. Under the watchful eye of Dave and Mary, I avoid making a foolish vehicular purchase and return to Utah for school. In the comments section, the mere mention of the Bug and its ultimate fate instigates a spontaneous ten-year reunion of the CB Fan Club.
Chapter Two: Sophomore Year
- Dave and Mary overestimate my fiscal responsibility and provide the account number to my college fund. (This makes it sound like I was a trust fund baby. I wasn't. But I'm still grateful to the ever fiscally responsible D&M. And I’m still sorry I lost that scholarship.) They live to regret it.
- To Dave and Mary’s consternation, one of my roommates shows up for school with an old yellow Bug. My willpower lasts all of three weeks before I use part of the college fund to buy my own old yellow Bug, which is much more affordable in winter-climate Utah.
(The Yellow Beauty. Okay, maybe not a beauty but it had a sweet spirit. Although I have better pics than this of my old Bug, the rest of them also include my 1990-something self sporting 1990-something eyebrows.)
- After purchase, I take the Bug to the VW mechanic to figure out if anything needs fixing. As it turns out, everything needs fixing.
- There are too many Bug-related misadventures sophomore year to relate, most of them due to the Bug’s poor work ethic. Like the time it broke down in the Taco Bell drive-thru when there were four hundred cars in line behind us and the roommates and I had to get out so some helpful and hungry guys could push-start the car, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the roommates and I weren’t wearing Halloween costumes at the time, which in turn wouldn’t have been so bad if it was actually Halloween. Other adventures arose out of my lack of manual transmission experience, yet willingness to drive the car anywhere anyway. For example, two days after I got the car the roommates and I decided to take it up to Salt Lake City. I took the wheel and the clutch, but this girl, who did drive stick, handled the gear shift, and things worked out fine.
- Rather than focus on the Bug’s many mechanical problems, I turn to cosmetic ones. With the help of two roommates and one neighbor's boyfriend, I successfully install a new radio in the Bug. I spend the next three years patting myself on the back for my technical expertise.
- For the remainder of the school year, only one of the two yellow Bugs in the apartment works at any given time. The most notable breakdown of record is the roommate's Bug, which dies at a gas station and is later towed and impounded at her expense. Although the car is not driveable, and although the impound lot is across the street from the VW mechanic, the always-friendly Provo tow company refuses to tow the car to the mechanic without charging an additional outlandish fee. In a show of apartment solidarity, all four 19-ish female roommates band together and push the Bug across State Street to the mechanic. And yes, it IS uphill and it IS in the snow. Although we receive several honks and shouts of encouragement, we receive no offers of help until the last few feet. Thanks for nothing, RMs.
- In the parking lot of Utah Valley Hospital, one roommate stands up to get out of the backseat of my Bug when she is suddenly struck by the realization that, although both feet are on the asphalt, only one of them has exited the car. Although the roommate is quite slender, the mere act of standing causes the last of the rusted floor to give way. Miraculously, she is unharmed and a return to the hospital for a tetanus shot and/or prosthetic foot is not required. For the next four months, all back seat passengers are instructed to sit Indian-style until I finally get the bright idea to take the floormat into Home Depot and ask the orange apron guy to cut a piece of plywood in the shape of it.
Will I win the Home Depo University Creative Woodcutting of the Year award? Will I at least get an honorable mention? And am I seriously planning on returning to Best Buy to work for the summer? You'll find out next time...
7 comments:
you and i met ten years too late, my friend, as you know that i count among my boyfriend hall of fame trophies one named for the "beetle enthusiast" with whom i spent many an hour on the side of the road, sitting on the floor of a garage, waiting in an auto parts store . . .etc, while the beetle got pirelli tires, or a cherry bomb, or underwent intensive scrutiny regarding whether it could be turned into a water cooled beetle like our infamous camper van. i hope you, like all beetle owners should, waved at other beetles when you passed them on the road. fun as wandering the aisles of pep boys was, the waving was my favorite part. but not at new vw bugs. we bit our thumbs at those.
it's so funny because i always dress in costume when i go to taco bell.
taco bell means incognito in estonian.
I'm loving this. Wish I'd been more involved during those months but I do remember helping with the stick while you worked the clutch! I think that by the time of a certain harrowing winter storm on I-15 you were the full-time operator?
i can't wait to find out if you will be getting a second job at Best Buy. i think the video game department is calling your name.
I might be jumping ahead, but I don't suppose that I make a cameo in "The Bug Chronicles" driving the Bug in first gear (since I didn't, and still don't know how to shift into second) for a certain indy flick?
I can relate all too well to this chapter of the bug chronicles as I too owned a classic yellow bug (1974) at BYU. Perhaps we even waved at one another. Despite the plethora of breakdowns, the endless miles walked, the quarters spent on calls for help (yes, this was before cell phones abounded), the embarassment of the push start, and the fact that my wardrobe took on the pleasant smell of exhaust fumes, I LOVED that car. She is still the inanimate object for which I have the most affection...a love that will never die, though she has long since gone to the grave. Sunny didn't have quite as exciting post-mortum exsistance as your bug (at least not that I know of) but how could anyone considering yours ended up as a disco ball, livin' the dream forever.
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