Chapter Five: Junior Year
- Carless once again, I find myself pining away for my dearest Bug. I look for the Bug in every parking lot in Provo. I still have a set of keys and wonder if I would have the nerve to steal it if I saw it. I also wonder if I would have the willpower not to steal it if I saw it. In short bursts of insanity, I consider dedicating songs to the Bug on easy-listening radio stations in hopes the Bug will return to me.
- On the first Ladies’ Night of the school year, former roommate and I arrange to meet up with a group of boys we palled around with as freshman (i.e., CB and CF and maybe JR, but I can’t remember), as they have all just returned from two-year church missions. The reunion destination is Club Omni (formerly The Edge), and as this is taking place so long ago that clubbing is still cool in Happy Valley, half the universe has shown up for the event. Due to post-traumatic stress disorder, I can’t remember the exact sequence of events, but I believe I am in the club’s basement when I run into Mrs. Gee and her friends and Mrs. Gee looks concerned and asks me if I’ve seen it. Seen what? She takes me up to the main dance floor and there it is: MY BUG, mounted to the ceiling, flashing its headlights to the peppy beat of the main floor music I so despise. The Bug is still red and white, but a layer of reflective glitter has been added and the windows have a mirror-like film on them, turning the Bug into a true disco ball as it bounces light across the room. Just to confirm its identity, I go and stand directly beneath it and look up. Sure enough, there is a telltale welded patch over the former hole in the floor. What was okay for me to drive cross-country with has now been fixed to spare the heads of any wallflowers below.
- It is 11:30 p.m., but I call Mary at home collect and, although I’m not a crier, I burst into tears. At this point in the story, everyone always asks why I was upset instead of amused—I can’t explain it, I just was. Mary can barely hear me through the crying and the club noise, but I explain to her that I’m at Club Omni and the Bug is there too. Mary keeps thinking I mean I saw the Bug in the parking lot, but I finally convey that no, it is inside, and it is hanging from the ceiling. She first bursts out laughing, but then manages to calm me down. I go back down to the basement for some “Everyday is Halloween” or whatever it is they’re playing and put on my best “I didn’t just have a nervous breakdown--I swear!” face.
- When former roommate and I are exiting the club, we see the manager. I stop and ask him where he got the Bug, and he tells me that some fishy consignment car dealer behind Deseret Industries parted the whole car out and he bought the body for $300. I'm not going to say what the fishy consignment car dealer paid me for the entire Bug, but suffice it to say that I got ripped off after all. After proving that the car was once mine (by confirming that, when he got it, it had a sticker on it with a picture of Elvis that said “I’m dead.” Heh. That still kills me), he parades former roommate and I around to all the employees and gives us some free passes. One of them produces a shoe I left in the trunk. It’s a cool shoe, but I’ve already tossed out its mate because I couldn’t find the missing one. I plan on keeping the free pass forever as a souvenir, but during a cash-strapped part of the semester I cave and use it.
- Months later, I am watching television when I see a commercial for Club Omni. It includes a cartoon version of the Bug flying through outer space. By now, I have visited the Bug numerous times and have made peace with its alternative lifestyle. I am even happy for the Bug—not every old car gets to live a second life as a disco ball with its own cartoon.
Epilogue
- At the end of junior year, I am walking across campus after my late night shift in KBYU’s master control when I cross paths with a clean-cut guy wearing a trench coat and sneakers and nothing else. Needless to say, the trench isn’t buttoned. I don’t feel scared and just keep on walking, but when I recount the story to Dave and Mary, they talk Mrs. Dub into letting me have the “kids’ car” Honda Civic in Provo so I don’t have to walk home late at night. (Mrs. Dub pays them back several months later when, as a freshman, she borrows the Civic to drive to Springville and get her tongue pierced. She also racks up several BYU parking tickets, which the school claims are mine. I have to pay them to get my diploma. But I digress…)
- When I return to BYU in 2002 for law school, it is to a changed, post-Olympics Provo. Los Hermanos is no longer the only restaurant in town. Private room is the new shared room. The University Mall has finally been remodeled. The heathen UVSC kids have taken over the world. Most notably, though, the club era has long since passed. I occasionally consider suffering a few minutes of salsa dancing (the only thing going on at Club Omni anymore) in order to see and take pics of the Bug, provided it’s still there. But law school is crazy and before I know it, I have graduated and left Provo again without ever visiting the Bug. Since the Bug, I’ve had two Hondas, one Jeep and a Vespa, and I can barely remember the time when I had to pray my car would start whenever I put the key in the ignition. But now that it’s over, I have to say I’m grateful that such a time existed.
15 comments:
I remember it like it was yesterday... and I remember the concerned look on Mrs. Gee's face as she broke the news! And, I remember feeling like minor celebrities or at least local heroes after that event -- what an amazing claim to fame for you!
I didn't realize clubbing in Provo had gone out with the millenium. So sad.
An awesome story, I hung on every word.
First!
(just kidding)
What an awesome tale of love lost, found again (but only in that yearning from afar way), then abandoned to remain only a fond memory (or even better, a whole slew of them). Seriously, this chapter will help me sleep better at night.
I can truly commiserate with being forced to part with a vehicle far sooner than we'd like, even if it's for the better. I miss having a car that would start most of the time.
And... I'll tell friends this story because it is so good it will make me seem cooler.
Damn... I would've been first...
I think you made this whole thing up. It's WAY too good a story to be true. That being said, if it IS true, I want to just say that I understand the bursting into tears part. I would have done the same thing, also for inexplicable reasons, but I felt tears coming on just reading about it, so don't feel bad about that part.
i'll disregard your incessant need to tell people of my past piercings and traffic record since you didn't mention that i was eventually banned from driving on campus due to the latter.
however, i will say that being related to the bug got me some buzz when i would go to the omni. (with CB and LP.) that is until someone got shot and killed there and they shut it down. and all the salsa dancers weeped.
i remember looking up at that bug on the ceiling and smiling. the few times we actually danced on the main floor. we always had to with rachel and lisa. they were more the top 40 type. :)
so what's next on the vespa blog, ginny? don't leave us hanging too long!
I will miss the Bug Chronicles far more than I have ever missed the Bug...the saga is so much funnier in the retelling than it was at the time.
If the Vespa gives you as much new material, Dave & Mary will be even madder than they were before...they're just not ready to hear about how the Vespa conked out at 2 am in South Central and you were saved by an Italian soccer team smoking Turkish cigarettes...however, hilariously you might relate the story.
But do keep the posts coming...if we're going to be in constant fear (for your life...your finances... your sanity), we may as well be entertained.
LOL. That's an amazingly funny story. Gotta love it!
I too will miss the Chronicles. But the retelling of your phone call to me on that fateful night brought back mixed emotions. First you scare the livin' daylights out of me and then you have me laughing so hard I can't go back to sleep.
When I was teaching seminary, that story got me some repect from a few misbehaving students like nothing else would.
Thanks then . . . and thanks now.
TGIF...because with the keekend maybe there will be new posts with the lastest Vespa tales now that the Bug Chronicles have hit the windshield.
Not sure what a "keekend" is, or maybe I was Vespa-ized and was thinking of a "keekstahnd", but, regardless, I'm still anxiously awaiting the next installment...alas, a certain senior partner may be waiting for the next brief and may have pulled rank...or maybe the hostess has "riders block".
riders block. that kills me.
p daddy is too funny. love it.
I stumbled upon this delightful blog today and really enjoyed your bug chronicles. My husband is currently obsessed with electric vehicles, and there is a company in Lehi that makes bugs into electric cars--no gas! My hubby is saving for one right now.
http://www.e-volks.com/index.html
Oh, I have loved reading The Bug Chronicles. I laughed. I cried. Can't wait for the motion picture.
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