Friday, April 22, 2011

The Honda Chronicles (Prelude)

We wake up to whatever audible noise was blowing through the window at the time. The feeling struck my gut in an instant that it should have been my phone that woke us up. The damn thing was underneath a pillow, out of sight, out of my attention span. Shit! It’s 6:30am and the flight leaves at 7:45am. I was supposed to get this girl to the airport 15 minutes ago.

We go into business mode- getting dressed, worrying about the essentials, and making sure our haste makes as little waste as possible. She’s leaving for the Dominican Republic, so missing this flight would be damn near irreversible/soul-crushing. We rush down the stairs, and all of a sudden it hits me. Hits me worst than the feeling of waking up late for a flight- missing a flight- missing Thanksgiving dinner (I’ve done all 3, don’t ask). However, it hits me… I’ve been here- in this situation- in this predicament exactly a year and some months ago. It “hit” me because the previous situation wound up becoming a $1500, 2 month long, situation… Ha, it’s different this time though. I have my own car, and things can’t possibly get as criss-crossed and screwed to hell as they did last time.

Stepping outside, the snow is coming down in thickets covering the ground and any hopes of spending April outdoors without cursing Minnesota to hades. Where is it? Where the hell is my car? This street doesn’t have 2-hour limited parking until 8am. Shit! Where the hell is Honda!?!?

Fuck it, we have absolutely no time. “We’re taking your car”, I tell her (not asking). We hop in the huge Dodge and zoom to Terminal 1. She’s good, makes her flight, all is well… except for the fact, I’ve wound up in the exact same position as oh-so-long ago. I have her car.

You see, once someone has given you the keys to their car, anything that happens to it is on you. Even if a meteor were to land on the hood of the hunk of metal, it’s on you. If a schizophrenic were to attack the car in a fit of psychotic blood lust, it’s on you. If King Kong missed the toilet and happened to shite all over your friend’s rusty late 80’s ride, it’s on you. Don’t be disillusioned by the rule of doing someone a favor by driving them to the airport… be afraid, very afraid, of the fact you’re steering the wheels of destiny between you and the owner of the machine you’re sitting in. The state of the car, will indefinitely become the state of the relationship between you and the owner. Be it friend, valet, or family… shit is real homie. And as they say in Bad Boys and Hot Fuzz, shit just got really real for me. I take the highway as careful as I can back to her house to hopefully find my car steep in snow, and not trailing the ass of a pickup back to the downtown tow lot.

Huzzah, Honda’s here. Covered in snow, rarely can I not tell Honda from the lot, but this particular street full of shitty cars had me second & third guessing all of’em. I make sure to park her car in the apartment lot where no harm or tow truck can accost it. Stroll to Honda, dive in the driver’s seat, and take off. Within 30 minutes… I avoided thousands of dollars of drama, months of bullshit, and (the most valuable of all) sanity. However, of all the turmoil that occurred last year between a simple airport drop-off and motor vehicle, I have to credit it as the most worthwhile string of soap operatics I ever went through… because in the end, it was how I came to own Honda.

How did this all go down a year and some months ago, you ask? Here, I’ll tell you. It all started with a similar airport drop-off, an epic New Year’s Eve, and a near-death highway collison…

To Be Continued…

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