Complete with a beautiful silver paint-job, custom Audi TT 17-inch rims, tinted windows, a rear spoiler and a sunroof, my 2000 Volkswagen Turbo Beetle gets me where I need to be.
When I drive to school, I'm coming from my house located in Northeast Phoenix near Tatum Boulevard and Pinnacle Peak Road. That's nearly a 45-minute drive in the mornings, five days a week.
I'm grateful to have that car, but I'd be even more grateful if the car worked.
I've replaced my car battery twice within a single year. My transmission forcefully jolts my car into gear at every stop light. My tires are flatter than Kate Moss' chest and balder than the head of Austin Powers' arch nemesis, Dr. Evil. My wiper blades were ripped apart by a freak hailstorm earlier this year. The heater is broken, leaving me armed with seat warmers that are capable of scorching my gluteus very-maximus.
In addition, I found out that if the sun roof is open, the music is on and the side windows aren't open, a loud thumping sound will radiate throughout the car. After only a few seconds of hearing it, you feel like your brain is being pounded into mush. Take it from me, mushy brains do not feel good. This is not something you want to happen to you, especially not right after you've picked up your date for Friday night.
You laugh now, but I speak from experience. It is never smart to start a date by turning each other's brains into Jell-O from vacuum seal reactions.
The car problems don't stop there.
The air-conditioning motor broke down as well, which prompts me to lower the windows for a natural breeze as I drive.
Let me tell you, during that 45 minute drive to campus, the car can get very warm, very quickly. So, I lower the windows to kick in my alternate air-conditioning system dubbed "the 2-80". Basically, that's two windows down and 80 miles per hour.
Unfortunately, the air-conditioning problem has caused two other problems.
With windows down, I'm fine. The wind cools me down as it blows through my gelled-up, hairsprayed hair. Unfortunately, all the exposure to the sun as I drive to school has left me with a deep bronze tan - on the left side of my body.
If you need a visual, go rent "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." I look a lot like like Richard Dreyfuss' character after he sees a UFO. The exposure to the intense light from the spacecraft burns one side of his face.
The other problem hits me far deeper than the dermis. Without air conditioning, I am frequently raising and lowering the windows. Well, in a Beetle, I've found out firsthand that the switch to operate each window is made of plastic, which can and did break. Tiny white pieces of plastic fell to the car floor last week and left me with no way to raise my driver's side window.
Of course, my biggest concern was about my car being stolen at school. Suffice to say, the paranoid life is not worth living.
To solve this problem, I asked myself, "What would Richard Dean Anderson (also known as MacGuyver) do in this same situation?" I had faithfully spent my childhood watching him turn bubble gum and paper clips into bombs to blow up the bad guys. So, I implemented MacGuyver's resourcefulness and used my dad's spare Allen wrench to save my car from potential theft. By shoving the end of the wrench into a 2-millimeter square hole in the mechanics of the side door, I can control the window.
It doesn't work every time though, and I found out that it is no easy feat to lower my window as I'm driving 80 miles per hour on Loop 101 towards ASU.
To top it all off, two days ago I lost my driver's-side headlight and daytime running light. Cops pull cars over for things like that. So, I'm left with a predicament. Do I take the advice of the Wallflowers and drive with "One Headlight" or switch on my brights and piss off every single driver on the road? Either way will bring attention to my Bug. All I can do is pray that the police have more important people to arrest and more important cars to impound.
Once this semester is over and summer vacation begins, I will have plenty of time to devote to working more hours per week so I can pay for the countless repairs my car needs.
Plus, with all that extra time, maybe I can get around to tanning the other side of my body.
Jimmy Shoffman is accepting monetary donations to help pay for the 91 octane premium gasoline required by his '00 Volkswagen Beetle. Reach him at james.shoffman@asu.edu.
