(Oodelally, oodelally, golly what a sponsored post. I've been watching clips of Robin Hood on Youtube.)

My dad's a car guy, so there are some things I don't have to worry about. If my car needs an oil change, he takes it for the afternoon. I don't really even know what a tune up involves, honestly. Okay, I do now after reading that page, but I didn't before. It's convenient, but also somewhat frustrating--because I'm a curious person, and whenever I ask my dad a car question, the answer I get it usually, "You wouldn't understand if I told you anyway." Thanks, Dad. So the ghetto little Acura Integra I'm driving sounds like it's about fall apart, and I have no idea why. Excellent!

While I'm near home, it's not really a problem. But if I move away, or if I'm on vacation, and something is wrong .... what then? Will I just have to google something like Houston auto repair on my phone and hope I don't get ripped off? It's a bit annoying. But I've pretty much given up on getting him to explain things at this point. On the rare occasions he does answer my questions, he makes sure to throw in as much technical jargon as he can until my get a blank look on my face .... and then he laughs.

Really I think it's because he wants to feel needed. I think he worries that if I were to actually be educated about vehicles he'd hear from me less, or something. Or he just enjoys annoying me, that could totally be it too.

Fahrfugkuger is not pretty. She has a big bald spot on her roof and paint peeling off her hood. She's a total mom mobile--a maroon hatchback four door sausage on wheels. Manual windows, manual locks; no CD player; no sunroof; her steering wheel doesn't adjust. Fahrfugkuger is the most stripped-down, basic 1993 Ford Escort imaginable. After driving an SUV for the last eight months, I feel like I'm shooting down the road in a hockey puck or something. The seats aren't terribly comfortable, and I'm not overly thrilled with driving a manual again. She's ugly, and not fun to drive, and hence I've named her Fahrfugkuger.

However, Fahrfugkuger has a small gas tank, only 12 gallons. It cost my only $28 to fill her up last night, and on her last tank of gas she went 394 miles. I can live with it.

(Watch this clip at 2:55 and you'll see what I say every time I get in my car. Yeah, I know Fahrfugkuger isn't what she's really saying!)

I got a desk Friday, and it's absolutely perfect! Big wide surface, storage compartments, etc. It would be a perfect computer desk, actually, but I don't want to move my computer to the spare room--it's in the living room now, so it's centralized.

Now, I have to go troll the city for a cheap bike of the type I'm after. My dad doesn't understand what I'm looking for--to him a bike is a bike is a bike. I tried to tell him I want a commuter bike, and he doesn't think that's an accurate description (that's what they're called, dammit!). He doesn't understand I don't need a shock-absorbing fork or a 24 speed drive train, and so it's not worth putting up with it not really being the right height for me and the non-replaceable seat being much too small. That's really the primary problem, but I'm trying to avoid saying that--because if I tell him that my ass is simply too big for the five inch seat, he'll probably say "Then why don't you do something about that?"

And then I'll have to get all sarcastic on him, because yeah, let me lose half of my body size before classes start tomorrow.

ETA: Well that was easy! There were three bike/yard sales listed on Craigslist, so I headed out. The first one I stopped at had about fifteen bikes in the front yard, and was run by an older guy who buys and fixes bikes. He had a blue one I immediately wanted, but it was already sold, so I tried a similar one, a green Huffy. It took a little bit of hopping around like an idiot to get on it--I haven't ridden a bike regularly for 14 years--but once I did, I knew it was my bike. It's just a simple, average bike--front brake, no gears, wide pedal stance, and a big seat. Light enough I'll be able to lift it on to the bike rack on the front of the city bus. New tires, new chain, new seat. It was the perfect fit for my leg reach, and my arm reach--and it didn't hurt my knees!

I still went to check out the other two sales, because $80 was a little more than I wanted to pay. The next one only had a few bikes, interspersed with a bunch of greasy tools and weird camping equipment. The only bike that would've worked for me was a little sportier. The seat was a little higher than I like, and it was an eight-speed, but it was still fairly comfortable stance-wise. It was only $40; but it hurt my knees. Also, the guy was sort of a creeper--after riding it down the block I was coasting into his driveway and he says "You look five years younger!" I wasn't impressed.

I went to find the third sale, but it wasn't where it said it was, dammit. So I went back to the first place, took another spin, and plunked down $80. I'm now the happy owner of a Huffy Northwest. It's even my school's colors!

I've learned, generally speaking, not to answer my phone when my dad calls after nine at night. If he's not drunk, he'll leave a message and I'll call him back. If he is, he'll leave a message and I'll call him the next day. It's just too frustrating to try to talk to him when he's been in the whiskey--I never know what to expect. It could be drunken angry ranting about my mother; it could be sad, bitter remorse about her. It could be rambling about how much he loves me; it could be rambling about how he's so worried about me because I'm fat/broke/single/unprepared for the fact that he'll "be dead soon". It could be technology questions it would be difficult to navigate him through sober; it could be anything.

But tonight, I accidentally answered it. And he was drunk, and I got a little bit of all the above except the technology thing. It started out with him apologizing for letting me leave his house last night without telling me he loves me. Then it was he's proud of me, and wants me to just relax and not worry about this school thing. Then it was tell my mother to do something obscene to herself, he's getting me a new car and it'll be better than anything she could do for me--in a sad tone of voice--and he'll have my Mustang ready for me. Then he lectured me about being fat and "unhealthy". Etc.

Basically it was par for the drunken course. Luckily, I've finally gotten the knack of not letting it get to me. More or less. It's frustrating to try to tell him, again, that I'm not unhealthy. It's frustrating trying to steer him away from the subject of my mother. And it's frustrating when I don't know what promises to believe. Is he really going to come up with a car for me? And if so, will it be in my name or will it stay in his and be something he can hold over me because he's afraid I'll desert him like my mother did? Isn't it a little suspect he's suddenly promising this once my mother has a car for me, because he's trying to show her up? And with my vehicle history, will it be another throw-away junker, or rather perilously close?

And if he does procure this car ... what the hell do I do then? Which parent do I turn down--my mother, who's so proud to be able to help me, or my father, whose motives are probably suspect but who says he'll have a newer, better vehicle for me? My mother, who's trying to help me establish things of my own, or my father, who'll cover the registration and insurance? My mother, who's trying to apologize for the last several years she's been a drag on me, or my father, who's trying to apologize for my less-than-stable childhood?

Twenty-seven years old, five years since they split up, and I'm still getting caught in the middle between them.

A few months ago, when I took my grandma to get her hair glued on, my ghetto buggy car was making a weird noise. So on the way home I stopped to see my dad, who gave me another car to drive while he looked at it. The second car actually used to be mine--well, after my dad bought it for his girlfriend, then dumped her and took it back, and gave it to me, and then took it back for himself because .... I don't know why, actually. And I liked driving this other car--all the gauges work! I know how fast I'm going, and how far I've gone, and how far I can go. Unlike the GB, which always says the tank is empty, it's going 0 mph, and that it hasn't gone more than 250,000 miles in the last three years. As an added bonus, this other car has a CD player and a good sound system, though that's obviously not so important.

Well, two Fridays ago, when I was leaving work, the damned thing wouldn't start. I got a ride home, and the next day my cousin picked me up and took me to my dad's for a family get-together. After that, he and his wife took my to my dad's shop to get the GB .... which started just fine, but after I stopped to say goodbye, it started acting up. It would start, but it kept stalling out. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. So they took me home, and my dad was going to bring me another vehicle, and then I'd have to take him to his shop, and then come home, and then go to work later.

Luckily for me, my other cousin was bored and came to visit the next day. So after hanging out at my house, she drove me to pick up the third vehicle in as many days, which is what I had for more than week. I appreciate my dad loaning me a vehicle; I'm glad I had a way to get to work. But I didn't enjoy driving this van--it felt like driving a holey box on wheels, while sitting in a rocking chair. Not in an unsafe way, exactly, but in the way of an older, uncomfortable vehicle. It also smells funny (like paint fumes, roadkill, and dust) and gets crappy gas mileage.

Last Friday, I had lunch with my mom and her husband. When we came out of the restaurant and she saw what I was driving, so had a fit--my dad's had that van since before they split up, and she had to drive it a few times. In the middle of the parking lot she started ranting, and then ranting in Spanish to her husband about it, asking him about some car they have that they were going to sell. Originally he said they needed to get their $500 back from it, which didn't seem unreasonable to me--it's not like they're well-to-do.

But when I broached the subject to my dad, wanting to know if he knew if Grand Ams are reliable cars, he got all pissed off. He started in on a bitter rant about how she should just give me the car, and something about her still "getting in his pocket"--even though what I asked was if it was worth it for ME to save up--and something about "Oh, so your daddy can afford to buy you an eight or ninth car!" I just let it go, because he was clearly not in a good mood--but he was exaggerating. My first car, my Mustang, he built himself--which is obviously a huge time commitment and expensive too, but that was his choice to give me as a sixteenth birthday present. It was also his choice to take that away from me and replace it with a two-door little Saturn.

When that got smashed up while parked on a street during a horrible snowstorm, we used the insurance money to buy a second Saturn. When that one got totaled as well (stupid flimsy fiberglass panels), he bought another car with that insurance money. When that car caught on fire going down the highway, he gave me a car he'd originally bought for my mother years before--which started out as a decent car, and is now known as the Ghetto Buggy. And then there was The Girlfriend's Car. So yes, he's kept me in cars since I turned sixteen, but it's not like he's bought an endless stream of cars, for me, out of pocket.

Yesterday at work, I got a text from my mom saying she's going to give me this other car. I know nothing about it except it's a Grand Am, it's some shade of green, and .... yeah, that's it. And I don't really feel comfortable accepting it for a lot of reasons. Part of it is because my dad's always been the one I relied on for help with vehicles. Part of it is that even though she's planning to just give it to me, he's still being all cynical and pessimistic about it--"How good could a 16 year old car be?" (Gee, I don't know--at least as good at the 19 year-old ghetto buggy I'd been driving? Or the 19 year-old car I'm driving now? Oh, wait--he's assuming she got it from a Hispanic person who ran it into the ground first, that's the problem.)

Part of the reason is also because I do realize that at my age I should be able to buy myself a car. And I'm working to get to that point. And this will help--my mom is going to put this car in my name, so I'd actually be able to trade it in, unlike the ghetto buggy which was never put in my name. So once I'm able to swing a car payment (hopefully soon), I just have to wait for the right trade in deal.

But most of the reason I feel uncomfortable about it is because of her husband. It's not that I dislike him personally; I don't know him, really. He doesn't speak enough English for me to really talk to him. And I know he's the one who found the car, and he's the one who put a stereo in it because my mom knows I'd want one, and he's the one who's taking it to someone to check that it runs as well as he thinks. I feel uncomfortable asking for help from anyone for anything--so to be given a car by someone who I really don't know? Very awkward.

But I can't turn it down without hurting my mom's feelings, because I know she's really happy she's finally in a position to help me with something. And also because I could never explain all this to her--she's always telling me how her husband cares about me like family, and then she'd give me crap about why don't I learn more Spanish and then I could talk to him.

So .... apparently, I'll have another car soon.

So I finally get out of work tonight, a mere half hour before close ... And my car? Won't start. At first I wasn't too bothered, I figured a jump would set it right (even though I hadn't left the lights on or anything). Oh, no. There's some connection somewhere that's screwed up.



It's actually my dad's car, so I called him to see if he could shed some light. Maybe he could have if he hadn't been drinking most of the night. Instead, he kept repeating himself and not understanding what I was telling him.



It's not like I'm stranded, I can get a ride home with a friend ... After the usual Friday night crew goes to the bar across the street for a drink. So now I'm sitting at a bar, which is never comfortable for me anyway, pissed off and just wanting to go home. So yes, I'm sitting at a bar typing a blog entry on my phone, because I don't want a drink and I can't hear my coworkers over the music anyway.



And then when I get home I have to make my house presentable because my dad will be picking me up in the morning--assuming he remembers tonight's conversation--to remedy this car situation. And I'm just not up for the lecture about my house being a mess and smelling like cats.



Maybe he'll forget and I can just stay home tomorrow. I don't feel like dealing with my family tomorrow, watching my aunt and cousin wait on the menfolk like slaves and listening to my aunt and grandmother nag my two cousins about when they're going to spawn.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

So on Monday, on the way to work, the muffler fell off my damn ghetto buggy car. Annoying, but not too critical, especially since my dad is a car guy and can fix it. I took my car (which is actually my dad's car I've been driving for three years) to my dad today for him to fix it, and he gave me a loaner.

But while I was there, I saw something wonderful. On blocks, in my dad's shop, was MY car. My classic red, white hard top, leather interior, more horsepower than a sixteen year old girl should've had, '66 Mustang. My sixteenth birthday present, taken away at 19 when I went to college, because my dad was afraid it would be stolen on campus. For eight years, my beautiful car has been sitting in storage. Every year or so my dad would make some mention of getting it ready for the summer, but it never moved from its place in my dad's storage shed.

But today, she's getting worked on! I might actually get my baby back! I'm so freaking excited! Except one thing. One rather embarrassing thing, that I noticed a couple of years ago when I went to sit in my car and be nostalgic. That one thing is this:

So ... I'm dieting. For my car. I think it's a worthy cause. I wore an 18 when I was driving my car before. I'm a 22 now. Two sizes isn't really that much. And since my car can't adjust, well, my flab will have to this time. I know I feel better when I eat less carby crap anyway, so it shouldn't really be difficult. Right? Well, we'll see.

I made $63 too little this weekend to cover my big fat credit card payment that'd automatically debited out of my account tomorrow, and that will cause hell fire to rain down upon my financial status if it doesn't go through. Long story. Anyway, I poured all my change out on the floor and started counting, because my other option was to write a back check for cash back at the store to get cash to cover tomorrow's bill, and then hope that tomorrow night's pay covers that check--and if not, then tomorrow's night's tips and Tuesday's. But instead, I'll be taking my change fund in to the bank tomorrow because I counted it and it just so happens to have $65 in it--lots of quarters.

So, I'll be starting December off right, rather than behind by even one shift. I'm going to work as much as I can this month; I have finals to worry about too, so I have to study, but I'm at least not going to take any days off ... not even my birthday (sigh). Well, that's not totally true, I am taking Friday night off, but it wasn't by choice. I couldn't get there until five, so they took me off the schedule (grumble). But other than that ... no days off. Not even the day after Christmas, which is going to really aggravate my dad. He's got this whole big family Christmas shindig planned out, he wants everyone to come up Christmas Eve and stay through Friday. But I'm already losing Thursday because of Christmas, I can't give up Friday too.

I haven't told him that I'm working on my birthday yet, either. He'll probably be cranky at me; when I worked at the local family-owned place and tried to work on my birthday, my dad called the owner and took the day off for me. I'd like to be able to rest and relax on my birthday. I'd like to go out with my friends. I'd like to not work. But as my dad is so fond of saying, back in the real world, it's just Thursday.

Actually, it's more of a re-christening. It used to be known as the Ghetto Buggy. This car is 18 years old, a little black box on wheels, and I don't exactly like it. I'm grateful to have a car that gets me from A to B, and that gets decent gas mileage to boot. But I liked it a lot more when the speedometer worked. And the odometer. The the dash lights. And I liked it even more when the gas gauge worked. I was only supposed to have this car for a couple of months, after my last car, well, caught on fire. That was 3.5 years ago.

A few days ago, I was sitting in my house and heard a car alarm going off. I didn't think anything of it until I walked by a window and saw the lights on my car flashing. Certainly this was strange; the only time it'd ever gone off before was when a friend gave me a jump. That was fun, I hadn't even known there was a an alarm on the car before.

So I threw on pants and trotted outside to disable it, thinking maybe a cat jumped on the car or something (of course, I once found muddy pawprints all over the car and that didn't happen). Came back inside, and before I even sat down .... off it went again.

This has been going on for a few days now, at totally random intervals. Sometimes once, sometimes three times before it stops. Sometimes if I start the car and let it run for about thirty seconds, it stops. I'm sure it just thrills my neighbors, since it does this at two in the morning sometimes.

So I'm taking my car to my dad today, and hopefully he can fix it. This means I have to clean my car, though, or risk a serious lecture. Crud.