Ridiculous Car Modifications…

Okay, I know that most of you will all be able to relate to this story whether you live in a big city or podunk town U.S.A.

I am a pretty average All-American kind of guy – I like football, pizza, boating, Mom’s cooking and girls. Although I spend most of my time these days cooped up in my apartment writing blogs and watching Blockbuster movies, I do get outside when the cabin fever sets in. Sometimes I will go out just to drive around town and see the world moving about around me. This is when I seem to absorb most of the antics and obnoxiousness I write about in this blog.

Have you ever been sitting at a stoplight and all of a sudden you hear a faint high pitched buzzing noise that sounds like a child making pretend farting noises into a tin can? The sound is so disturbing to the peaceful harmony you are enjoying while listening to The Neville Brothers on your XM radio, that you have to turn it down and role your window down to figure out what it is. You look left, then right, only to see a vehicle next to you with no driver – just a low-rider, tricked out, hearse looking, something or other type truck with a ball cap behind the wheel. You panic slightly for a moment thinking the driver may have had a heart attack or even fallen asleep at the wheel til’ you see a pair of eyes pop up over the door frame and glare at you like Kilroy.

Although you are momentarily relieved that the driver is okay you now realize that the annoying buzzing noise is actually coming from the exhaust pipes of this, um, car? Truck? SUV? Now the driver knows you are looking at him (since you haven’t looked away for two minutes straight) and he starts to, yup, dance – in his seat. One of your eyebrows goes up in disbelief as he turns up his 1,000 WATT radio to a whopping 150 decibels and the car starts shaking like a ride at Disney’s Hollywood Theme Park.

But that’s not he worst of it. Oh no. For some unknown worldly reason the driver thinks that the already distorted music and rattling vibration needs to be accompanied by the sound of his tweaked out muffler giving off that ‘farting’ noise we talked about earlier; so he mashes his foot up and down on the gas pedal over and over again; trying to keep to the rhythm (if that’s what you can call it).

Not a moment too soon, the stoplight changes to green and the gizmo gadget car takes off like – a snail? You hear the engine whining and the muffler sputtering. You see the vehicle lurching with each change of the gears… but it has now made it to fourth gear and you look at your own speedometer – 30 MPH! WooHoo!

You realize that your own rusted out Volvo wagon is now taking the lead, so you role your window back up and crank Aaron back to his previous level. You settle back into your little comfort zone as you realize that the entertainment is now over. You chuckle, pat your old Volvo on the dash and decide to make a little whining noise of your own as you join The Neville Brothers in “On The Other Side Of Paradise”.