Stupid on wheels

Susie started this one with her tales of vehicular incidents.

1. I quit the band after my junior year when the director decided to be an arse about the part-time job I held to earn money for college (maybe I'll blog that, one day when everyone's really bored).
   
   One Friday night, during my senior year, my folks were out of town. I wasn't supposed to take the Opel* out of town while they were away, but I wanted to go to the football game in a town about 30 miles away to hang out with my band geek buddies. So I went anyway and subsequently locked the keys in the car in the parking lot of Franklin High School.
   
   It was one of those moments when realization dawns just. As. The. Door. Clicks. Shut. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
   
   45 minutes of creative work with a coat hanger, and I was saved—but it was a fairly panicked 45 minutes.


2. Later in my senior year, I took the Opel to a "disco" that a couple entrepreneurial college students put on at the flea market building every Saturday night. Usually, when I went to the dances, I spent most of my time milling around, scoping the crowd for females with appropriately low standards who might want to dance.
   
   Usually, I danced a couple dances with one or two girl buddies from school and want home without meeting anyone; but on this night, I met the Sheffield sisters, who went to Tompkinsville High School. We had a great time, dancing and flirting, until the dance was ending and one of the girls discovered that their ride had just left.
   
   Once again, I broke the rule about driving the Opel out of town. A knight in shining Opel, I drove the Sheffields down some of the twistiest two-lane roads I've ever seen to their trailer in BFE Monroe County. Then, with my mission accomplished, I headed back home.
   
   To this day, I'm not sure exactly what happened. I know I was in the middle of a sharp right curve. I know I wasn't drinking or speeding. I think I swerved to miss hitting an animal.
   
   The car fishtailed left. I steered into it, but too much. The car fishtailed right, kept going. The passenger side slammed into some fence posts on the driver's side of the road, flipping the car into the air and down a 15-foot embankment. WHAM! It landed on its roof and flopped over onto its wheels.
   
   The engine was ticking from the heat. The turn signal was ticking because I'd hit it. I tried to turn it off but it was bent at a right angle (because I'd hit it) and I had trouble finding it. The windshield had popped out, folded double, and was lying on the hood. I had a few moments of panic when I tried to get out and couldn't. I remembered to unhook the seatbelt and things went more smoothly.
   
   Out of the car, I climbed the embankment to the road and looked around. I was in the middle of nowhere. No sounds. No streetlights. I started walking, hoping to find a farm house where I could use the phone.
   
   When I realized I was walking down the double yellow line, it occurred to me that that this was probably a bad idea and I moved to the shoulder. Finally, I found a house, got the skeptical farmer to let me use his phone, and made the dreaded call to Dad.
   
   Who, to my stunned amazement, was more concerned about me than about the car. Just one of many lessons I learned from the experience, but probably the most important.


3. Before the Opel, Dad had this '62 Chevy II station wagon he bought off a guy from work for $50. The paint scheme was White Oxidization and Rust two-tone. At some point, the previous owner had removed the 3-speed on the column and replaced it with a 4-on-the-floor, which poked up through a chunk of screwed on tin. The guy was into building pro stock drag racing cars, and maybe that explained the glass pack muffler on a six-cylinder rustbucket. We called it The Tin Can.
   
   This is the car Dad drove to work every morning at 6am. He'd go out, the door would slam with a hollow clang, and he'd spent a minute fiddling with the manual choke until the Chevy started. Then he'd rev it for half a minute to keep it running. The old engine didn't have much compression, so he had to feather the throttle and clutch to get the car started up the driveway. But once he got going, the car roared like an old school bus.
   
   The neighbors used to say that they set their clocks by that roar.
   
   When I still had my learner's permit, my folks were out of town, and I located one of the spare keys to The Tin Can and took it for a joy ride. The only manual transmission car I'd driven before was my buddy's Datsun B-210, and this ornery beast was a whole different animal. My short drive across town and back was a real experience, but I got home safely and parked the car.
   
   I think I must not have gotten the car back in exactly the right spot, because in a conversation years later, Dad said he knew I'd taken the car.


4. After I graduated from college, I couldn't find a job in my field. Out of desperate need for some way to make the student loan payments that had started up, I took a job managing an auto body repair shop at a local car dealership. There, I was demeaned by the owners, forced to get up early and work long hours, and was paid so little that I was forced to live at home with my parents.
   
   To salvage my sanity, I would drive about 35 miles to the town where I went to college and spend the occasional weekend with friends who were still in school. After attending a party one Saturday night, I was driving home and realized I'd had too much to drink. I pulled over, parked in the entrance to some farmer's field, and fell asleep.
   
   It would make a better story if I had awakened with the sun coming up and cows peering at me over a fence, but that's not what happened. I slept until about 3am and then drove home without incident.
   


5. I once got up early on a Saturday morning to do some errands. Somewhere between getting in the car and backing out of the garage, I must've gotten distracted by something. The next thing I knew, there was a crash as I backed into the still-closed garage door. The car was okay, but it cost me $500 to replace the garage door and tracks.

I'm sure there are more. I'll add them later, if I think of some.

* When I was in high school, Dad bought this keen butterscotch-colored Opel coupe that looked like the Manta body style (if anyone's keeping track) but wasn't. It had a black, cloth-colored top and a sporty black hood (it came that way). Tan interior, bucket seats... what a great car.