The Allison Automobiles....You can't make this stuff up.

This past Wednesday, I retrieved my car, a 2000 Nissan Maxima we have affectionately deemed “Stella,” from the auto repair shop. Our other vehicle, a 2006 Ford F150 we call “Wyatt,” escaped from the shop only a few days before. I suppose I should be thankful that I managed to escape with a bill just a hair less than a thousand dollars. At the Allison household, however, we have no sense of humor about automotive repair, and the vehicle debacle sparked a walk down automobile memory lane for the two of us. Let me preface my story with this: I have owned two cars during my entire driving life-a 1997 Red Mercury Tracer (“Annie”), a gift from my precious grandparents on my sixteenth birthday and the aforementioned “Stella.” Comparatively, Joshua’s car history is much more sordid, and I cannot help but suspect that his “kiss of death for cars” could have contributed to our recent rash of bad luck. Hence, I have affectionately titled this entry “You can’t make this stuff up,” and well, read on….perhaps you will understand precisely what I mean:

• Chevy Astro Van: Since Joshua swears that he once owned a Mitsubishi Gallant that only ever had a problem with the timing belt, I suppose that this is the vehicle that started it all, a minivan so cliché that practically every Southern family in 1996 owned one (or the Ford variety: See Loser Cruiser 1.0). One night on his way home from Stillwater, Joshua, behind the wheel of the family Astro, slipped on a patch of ice and lost control of the vehicle, slamming into a bridge embankment. Now, in the State of Oklahoma, I would call that “Failing to Operate a Motor Vehicle at a Speed Reasonable and Proper,” and as the story goes, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol agreed with me. Joshua disputes my assessment but admits that during his skid, he managed to take out about six orange traffic barrels. Per Joshua, said barrels are actually filled with sand and water, and they cost around $250 a piece to replace. As a result of this encounter, the family Astro became approximately three feet shorter, and because of some alleged “miscommunication,” Joshua was ticketed by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, a citation he is still bitter about to this day. Only my husband could attribute total blame for a single-car accident and its aftermath on the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Oh, and the ice…I stand corrected.
• Ford Bronco: As long as I have known Joshua, he has had a thing for old Ford Broncos. You know, the big boxy ones that look sort of like an old Landcruiser or Scout? Apparently, he owned one for a brief period following the infamous Astro. This gem did not have air conditioning and had a hole the size of a basketball in the passenger seat that apparently went all the way through to outside of the vehicle. Accordingly, when Joshua drove the Bronco, he could lean over and see the road literally as he was driving over it. One time, Joshua went out to the Bronco to discover that a snake had coiled itself inside his cab. One can only guess how this animal gained access to the vehicle. After enjoying his dream car for only a short while, the transmission went out while he was in town, and he was forced to drive the Bronco home several miles…in reverse.
• 19 Seventy-Something Chrysler LaBaron: Joshua swears this car was “really nice” AND he paid only $400 for it. Read that sentence again and ask yourself: Is that possible? Despite its charmed beginnings, this vehicle literally went down in flames. While Joshua was driving his mother to work one day, he smelled smoke and within a matter of minutes, the infamous LaBaron burned to the ground in the middle of the intersection at 71st and Riverside in Tulsa. While the fire department put out his smoldering LaBaron, local drivers, aggravated that Joshua had the audacity to allow his vehicle to catch fire at a major intersection during rush hour, added insult to injury: They flipped him off and yelled obscenities as they rubber-necked past the grisly scene.
• Loser Cruiser 1.0: When Joshua and I started dating, he occasionally picked me in up in this vehicle-a 19 Ninety Something Maroon Ford Aerostar complete with extended cab. According to Joshua, his mother backed the Loser Cruiser into a tree, meaning that the tail light was attractively duct-tapped (because having a vehicle repaired by a licensed mechanic relatively close in time to the event that actually necessitated the repair is never an option for an Allison vehicle). I have to admit some affection for this vehicle: My family owned the same model (not extended cab) in a lovely caiman green. During the entire term of our ownership, a taillight was always out no matter how often my father replaced it. Maybe the Allisons were the wiser-They elected to surrender early to the inevitable and just put the taillight out of its misery. When we traded in our Aerostar, I remember Mom talking about how she prayed the transmission would not fall out of the vehicle while the car salesman took it for a drive. Joshua was driving this vehicle when he was hit by a deaf lady. She proceeded to cuss out a Tulsa Police officer who arrived on the scene…in sign language. Joshua’s insurance company eventually had to sue her to collect for damage she caused to Loser Cruiser 1.0. The Allisons suspected the same lurking transmission problems and sold the vehicle to the church janitor for next to nothing, figuring it would probably amount to nothing more than scrap. Five years later, Joshua and I spotted the bearded janitor driving the Aerostar at an intersection by our house. We recognized the busted taillight.
• Loser Cruiser 2.0: When Joshua was not visiting me in the aforementioned Aerostar, he brought the brown Ford Taurus station wagon, complete with a trash bag duct-tapped over a rear window (See previous comment regarding Allison repair policy). Joshua’s brother, Ethan, apparently shot the window out with a BB gun after setting up a target on a tree right in front of the family car. Now, Ethan was a teenager at the time when none of the 10,000 calories he consumed made it above his neck and certainly long before he became a Green Beret, but he explained the incident by simply saying: “I didn’t think I would miss.” During the time we dated, I lived at Kappa Kappa Gamma house at the University of Tulsa, and Joshua would park his ride at the law school across campus and walk to the sorority house on foot to pick me up. I have to admit I found this little routine a little endearing, in that, he obviously did not want to embarrass me in front of my sorority sisters.
• Shenobi: After Joshua and I married, we shared “Annie” for some time. I drove him downtown to work in the morning and went on to class at TU, picking him up around 5:00 that evening. When Joshua changed schedules, we started looking for another car on our poor newly-wed budget. My grandparents had a family friend who had a 1986 Nissan Sentra with about 30,000 miles on it that they offered to us for next to nothing. Now, do the math: This car practically lived in its garage. Joshua and I decided that since it was a Japanese car, we needed to give it a Japanese name. Joshua deemed this little red number “Shenobi” which is Japanese for “Lethal Wind.” Shenobi ran perfectly for a year or so before his age and long garaged life began to catch up with it. Too poor to pay for the repairs, Joshua put Shenobi on blocks in our driveway, an option certainly not out of the ordinary in our old neighborhood (See my “Redneck Neighbor” Entry), bought the repair manual for a car produced the year my college graduate sister was born, and proceeded to fix the vehicle. It hobbled along for another few months, including a tow or two, before officially becoming property of the Salvation Army. We paid a little over a thousand dollars for Shenobi, and at the Salvation Army auction, some joker paid over $700 for it. We had no idea we were so generous,
• The Van: After Shenobi, we were certainly in no better position to invest in another automobile. I was in the middle of law school, and Joshua had just started a new job at Quiktrip. My grandparents again came to our rescue: They offered us their 1992 Ford Econoline conversion van, complete with curtains, a fold-down bed, captains chairs, a TV and a VCR. Even though this vehicle was not exactly a commuter car, we were in no position to be picky. I had a rather colorful history with this van: My family borrowed this van to go on the worst vacation of my entire childhood, a trip that leaves me scarred to this day. While on this infamous roadtrip, my sister, Emily, got the stomach virus….literally in the van. After the horrors I witnessed on this trip within the belly of this beast of a van, I still break into a cold sweat if I overhear anyone talk about having an upset stomach. In fact, as a result of this very trip, I forced Joshua to promise that he was on permanent barf duty when our possible future children get the yaks. In exchange, I will handle absolutely anything else…I mean, anything…blood, boogers, snakes, horrible gangrenous wounds, etc. I swear, when we picked up the van from Meme and Papa’s house, the same wicker trash basket where my sister, well, you know, on that trip was still in the back. This should have been an omen. During our ownership of the van, we always questioned whether the air conditioner really worked. I am of the opinion that the belly of the beast was simply so expansive that it had to run about a week to cool off during August in Oklahoma. As you might imagine, its top speed was about 45 mph. On the morning of its death, Joshua headed for work around 5:30 in the morning, and he called me to tell me that he had been in an accident. In my panic, I thought I heard him wrong: The breaks went out and he hit something. Well, he actually hit Quiktrip, his place of employment. How many people can say they ran a car into their employer’s building and still got promoted twice that same year? Apparently, as he was pulling into a parking spot, the break pedal went to the floor. Luckily, he was going so slow that the momentum carried him only up the curb and against the Quiktrip building, crunching a pay phone booth in the process. After the accident, my poor husband had to go inside the Quiktrip in his uniform to fill out an accident report. Can you imagine the scene? “Hi, I’m Joshua. I am the manager on duty this morning, and I just wrecked my huge ass van against the side of the building.” Later that night, I went into the same Quiktrip to get a drink and the employees were still laughing about it. On an aside, I think that Quiktrip must have had some pity on him: They reported the damage to the pay phone booth but it did not cost us anything but our pride. We like to think that they told AT & T some drunk hit the thing in a giant van and drove off. We parked the van on the street for a few weeks with a “For Sale” sign on it. The “baby-sitter” from next door (See “Redneck Neighbor” entry) called to make an offer. He bought a scooter instead, and we donated another vehicle to the Salvation Army. We like to think that we were the givers of the year. We should have been at Texas Stadium with Jerry Jones on Thanksgiving, dropping coins into the huge red Salvation Army pot with the homeless kids while Carrie Underwood sang “God Bless America” and Tony Romo ate a greasy turkey leg.
• Time for a New Car: After the death of the van, Joshua and I were back to old reliable “Annie” as our only means of transportation. I like to think that Joshua drove “Annie” for a while thus resulting in her air conditioner going out…in August. Trying to survive the bar exam before buying a new car, I drove “Annie” back and forth from Tulsa to Bristow during an Oklahoma summer without air conditioner. In August, I would change out of my business suit into soccer shorts and a tiny tank top to drive home in the hair-dryer heat wind tunnel. There were several times I seriously contemplated driving home in my bra, panties, and flip-flops. One fateful day, I hopped on the turnpike in my skimpy driving outfit, and a tire blew out, resulting in a few good spins in both lanes of turnpike traffic. I saw my life flash before my eyes. When I came to on the side of the turnpike, I spotted the McDonald’s on the turnpike just ahead. For those of you familiar with the turnpike, my accident happened immediately upon my entry at Bristow. I contemplated walking down the entrance ramp, but I worried another vehicle might hit me coming around that curve. I called my friends, fellow Creek County lawyers, to come and pick me up, telling them I estimated I was only a few hundred feet from the McDonalds, the golden arches looming like a mirage in the dessert. I grabbed my briefcase and laptop bag and started walking down the shoulder of the turnpike basically in my skivvies as truckers raced past me, honking and cat-calling out their windows. Soaked in sweat and too delirious to be embarrassed, I arrived at the McDonalds parking lot to find my friends rolling in laughter: They could not even see my car it was so far down the turnpike. My bruised ego recovered and so did “Annie”: We repaired her tire and gave her to Joshua’s sister, Hannah. Hannah took “Annie” to college this weekend, and frankly, that little red car will probably outlast the news ones we have now.
• Summer of Car Repairs: Although I could describe how I did a few more circles on the Turnpike during a rain storm without plunging to my death on my way to court one day while driving “Stella,” I will happily move forward to the present. Well, it is August, and as all Okies know, car repairs never happen in the winter. They happen in the 101 degree heat in some asphalt-covered location (i.e. Turnpike shoulder, Wal-Mart parking lot), leaving their owners to pit in dress clothes and heels waiting on the tow truck. A few weeks ago, Joshua was driving home to Bristow when he randomly blew out two tires on “Wyatt”…..two tires on the same side without hitting anything! I arranged for a two-mile tow to a Tulsa tire shop-It cost well over $100. After dropping a few hundred dollars on two new tires, a requirement for any vehicle repair visit, we returned home only to discover one of “Stella’s” tires was getting low. I took “Stella” to the tire repair place, paid for a patch, and drove her to Drumright where I was teaching a legal class. When I came out to my car in the dark parking lot, my repaired tire was flat. A phone call to the tire repair shop the following day yielded an apology for the “miscommunication”: I paid for the repair. They accepted my payment. They neglected to tell me the tire could not be repaired. I retrieved the vehicle and drove at over 60 mph on said tire. Again, I narrowly escaped death. When Joshua and I prepared to take “Stella” to the repair shop for what we could only hope would be an actual repair, we discovered that one of Joshua’s not-new tires was now flat. Both cars now had flat tires. Joshua had to take a vacation day to address this problem. A few days after we purchased our tires, “Stella” started screaming…I mean, making some noise like something out of the bowels of hell when I drove it. This is an especially classy reality for a new lawyer to face...driving down Main Street in Bristow while my car literally howls, making awkward eye contact with potential clients and people I know at every stop light (because, of course, every light is red when you are driving a screamer). I called the repair place. They assured me my vehicle was perfectly safe, albeit embarrassing, to drive, and we scheduled a repair for the screaming “loose belt” the following Monday morning. Well, on the Friday morning before said appointment, the air conditioner stopped blowing cold air while I was en route to McDonalds (yes the same locale previously featured) for coffee. I did not worry, assuming I could simply get my coolant recharged during Monday’s repair appointment. When I came back to my car, coffee in hand, “Stella” was dead. We towed her to the repair shop, resigned to driving the green pick-up for a few days. The following day, Joshua drove the pick-up to meet me for a wedding, and the vehicle would not go much faster than 60 mph. Fearing the worst, replacing a belt and compressor in one car and a transmission in another, we hobbled to the repair shop.
• Small Town Saviors: Well, once again, we love our little town life. A family friend at the Ford dealership repair shop had pity after hearing this latest chapter in the pathetic Allison automotive sob story and facilitated a quick and an inexpensive repair for “Wyatt” the pick-up truck. Two weeks and several hundred dollars later, I am relieved to have my car back, purring like a kitten, blowing cold air, and mercifully, no longer screaming. We are both hoping for a few repair-free months for the Allison automobiles, a wish that seems relatively plausible as the Oklahoma summer draws to a close. We talked about doing some car shopping, maybe picking out a new Allison automobile, but frankly, I am somewhat reluctant to push our luck. After all, those little hybrids are just so cute that I would hate to dictate their destiny by affixing the name “Allison” to the title.