the car

Momma and I are the proud owners of a lovely Buick POS, also known as a Skylark. It's not the car we actually use, in fact it's not been driven in a number of years. It was the first car that we bought together, and truth be told, we'd just as soon not have this car sitting around anymore. That will likely change soon.

I'll give you a little background on the car before I go into my gripe. Some years ago, as Momma was leaving the house, she experienced one of the delights of automobile failure. One of the pistons broke inside the engine rendering the car immediately fucked. Anyone familiar with the internal combustion engine knows exactly what this means. Anyone else can well imagine.

We had the car towed, on the advice of Momma's grandfather, to the house we now live in. At the time Momma's grandparents lived here. Her grandfather was our mechanic, though this repair was a bit more than he could handle. With some small amount of help from me, he raised the car up, removed the engine and transmission from the rest of the car, and then took the engine block off. The plan was a stop gap measure intended to make the car drivable again. He took the block to a machine shop, and then the mists of time took over.

Fast forward a couple of years. Grandfather was expecting to get the work done cheaply, and we had long ago replaced the car with the Accord we currently drive. Grandfather was in no hurry to get the engine block back, especially when he learned that the man who was going to do the work had had a nasty fall off of a ladder. Another year or so passes, and grandfather learns that the man has died. The man's son, in taking over the shop, got rid of all sorts of things that he assumed were trash. One of those things was our engine block.

So now we are faced with the prospect of having every bit of the car except the block. It's sort of a necessary component if you want a car with an engine and the ability to be driven. Grandfather, still in no hurry, has decided he will try to locate an engine block. He has planned this whole time to get the car running again, and while Momma and I often feel we'd prefer to be rid of it, we also know that having that second car, even if it is a Skylark, would be beneficial for the family.

Fast forward yet again to yesterday. While Momma was at work, the boys and I went to the cove to play and hang out with some of Momma's derby sisters and their children. We were even lucky enough to find some homeschool friends who oddly enough know a lot of the same people that the derby girls do. I've mentioned the size of my town before, and it was neat to see that again yesterday. We all had fun, even if I did get my first sunburn of the season. It's not a bad burn, but it does show up on me in the usual farmer tan, neck up and arms down. Without a shirt on I still appear almost to be wearing a shirt.

We returned home from a lovely day next to the river to find that a codes enforcement officer has been by and left a lovely orange sticker on the POS windshield. My Buick is obviously either abandoned or inoperable, and that is against the city code. I won't mention the fact that within a mile of my house in any direction one can find ten to twenty similar cars. I won't mention that the Buick is behind the house, nearly invisible to most passersby, unlike those other cars, often found in people's front yards.

So what's the difference between my abandoned or inoperable vehicle and the others? Apparently the others are not owned by people who have cunts for neighbors. The report on my car was made anonymously, so even if I asked I would not be able to learn which cunt neighbor called. I have an idea who it was. I have two neighbors that could actually be bothered by the car, and only one of them walks down his driveway scowling in my direction. His lawn is pristine where mine is a little tall, and I think maybe he called about the car because there isn't dick he can do about the grass. The other neighbor is an understanding sort who would actually approach me with problems.

The other option in people who might have called could be the people building the condos down the street. If it were them, then I'd like to call somebody to disallow them from cluttering up my little neighborhood with their condos. We don't have the streets or the infrastructure to support that type of sudden growth, especially when you factor in the two other developments within less than a mile of this one. I will not be happy with the increased traffic on my narrow street nor will my neighbors or any of our children. We already have enough assholes mistreating our street, especially the unmarked police car that regularly drives about fifty miles per hour between the stop signs, a distance of less than a quarter mile.

I wonder what it would have taken for the person who called the law on me to have actually approached me. He could easily have walked over and asked me about the car. I could have explained the circumstances and could have hoped for a little understanding. I didn't get that at all. Instead I have six days now to figure out how to dispose of a car that, while I don't especially want it, I certainly don't want a city tow truck showing up, towing it off and trying then to charge me for the privilege.

Yes, the car could be considered a bit of an eyesore. The front end is on jack stands and the tires are off. Of course the tires are off as the axles are attached to the transmission which is in the garage. The car is behind the house in the driveway, so it isn't one of those cars that I have to mow right up close to and still miss the grass growing underneath, nor is it home to varmints of any kind. The car, as I've mentioned, is nearly invisible to most people passing in the street.