middleblog-a suburban babble brook book

An Aside: The Adventures of Rosie, the Resurrected Ram

    I've expounded on my love of 1980's Dodge trucks before, but until last week, I didn't have one to call all my own.  But now I do, and I love her, in all her 25 year old, fossil fuel chugging, exhaust spewing, snarling imperfect glory.
    My good friend and I discovered Rosie sitting forlornly behind an apartment building, with no plates and flat tires. 'Hey, look, that looks like one of Wayne's trucks!' Amanda exclaimed, as I simultaneously shouted joyously 'A Dodgy Dodge!' (Wayne, the sweets, is synonymous with 1980's Dodges, while every time I see one I  exclaim happily.)  Noting her dejected air, I determined I would make inquiries into her and claim her for my very own.
    The sweets swiftly (notable for him) looked into acquiring her, and did so for the princely sum of $100.  As he avariciously pointed out, she's worth more in pure scrap value-easily $450 or more.  I had mixed feelings when I learned at the Registry of Motor Vehicles that Rosie's book value is about $2400 (mixed because our RMV charges sales tax on whichever is higher, the purchase amount or the book value...damn you, Kelley Blue Book! It cost me more on sales tax than it did to purchase the vehicle...?)  We inflated the tires, popped a fresh battery in, and Rosie snarled into life for the first time in 2 years, as we were given to understand.  Very little fuss and muss with the mighty Dodges.
    As one would expect with any 25 year old vehicle, Rosie has a moderate assortment of issues that need tending to.  She needs a fresh brake line;  her muffler is cracked (don't be surprised if I suddenly stop writing, as I'm morbidly certain that I'm soon to succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning); her power windows ain't got no power; her high beams don't work; her windshield wipers don't work; her radio doesn't work (yes, I know, but for me a car just isn't a car without a radio); she desperately needs a tune-up (when cold, she has an alarming habit of conking out when attempting to move forward from a stop-frightening when crossing highways...); her oil pressure gauge doesn't work; the right turn signal (on the dashboard) doesn't work...well, there are a few more niggling details, mostly aesthetic, that are amiss...but she possesses that immutable charm of the Dodges-she runs, and she rolls.  Granted, I'm about to double nickname her 'Mosey Rosie' because I don't like taking her on the highway (60 MPH with juicy steering, due to larger-than-stock tires, and the aerodynamics of a brick wall on wheels is no kind of fun...but 40 on a back road is a blast and 1/2), and I feel guilty because her gas consumption is astronomical due to the tune up and cracked muffler...but Rosie's dripping character that the little modern green mobiles lack.  She's a beast.  Better still, she's a beast with all the fancy little options, EXCEPT 4WD, that were available (although the power windows I really could skip...power windows are just asking for trouble, in my book, and besides, my arm could use the exercise).
    Speaking of 4WD, I've always felt that a pickup truck or SUV without it is an absolute oxymoron.  It negates the purpose of having a truck.  And how can you be sporty OR utilitarian if you're stuck in the mud or snow?!  Anyhoo...
    I named her Rosie because a previous owner affixed frosted rose stickers on the vent windows on her doors (I call them smoking windows, and the sweets calls them butterfly windows...the little triangular guys, and, incidentally, the only ones I enjoy currently.) 'Rosie the Ram' is deliciously oxymoronic. (You read 'oxymoronic' here first.  Feel free to use it, but remember who coined it.)
    So, to get to the adventures and wind this tale up!  The first day I put Rosie through her paces, I headed one town over to visit my best friend.  On the way there, an ambulance came screaming down the road (I must admit, in the past, due to a fondness for a loud radio, I have failed to notice ambulances until they've been far too close...), which posed a neat problem, since I was in a left lane, at a red light.  Light turns green, I smudge over, ambulance goes by, and a miniscule sedan thinks it's going to fight me for rights to the road.  Sorry, honey, right is might, and once I switch lanes, I stay there.  So passes Incident Number One.
    We decide to head out for an ice cream at a local long-standing greasy spoon.  (If you're anywhere near a Tourist Central, you probably have one of these traditional spots, where the fare is so-so, but the place has been around so many summers it's in your blood, and a once-a-year nostalgic treat.)  Upon leaving, I'm making a right turn when WHUMP!! my door flies open.  (Yeah, I didn't shut it properly.  Shutcher piehole.)  I shriek 'Ai!', shut the door, and my best friend and her niece collapse into gales of laughter that don't subside for a solid ten minutes.  They said it wasn't the event so much as my reaction that inspired the hilarity.  But I'm used to people laughing at me. ;)  So passes Incident Number Two. (unique to my experience, incidentally.)
    Later that evening, I head home.  The route that I choose has been undergoing some kind of odd construction (water pipe laying, that tears up about half the road) and I come to a patch where the big orange, silver-striped barrels are in the MIDDLE of the lane.  A narrow lane, at that.  And Rosie's a big girl.  So I'm forced to drive in the middle of the oncoming lane, and towards the end of the barrels, I had a few horrific seconds of playing chicken with oncoming traffic. (No highbeams, remember...).  So passes Incident Number   
Three.
    Now, let me take a moment to bring you up to speed on my less than charming living arrangements.  I have a soft spot for animals, and, as a result, we have five living with us, two dogs (both Other People's Rejects-Diamond the Dachschund I've nicknamed the Nazi, or Gestapup, because he can be as fresh as the day is long, and Lucy, the Boxer/Mastiff mix, who's just a big snaggle-toothed sweetie...but both are prone to accidents in the house *sigh*) and three cats (my two old-timers, who I've had for easily 12 years, and the kitten, who I may kill, since she's taken to pissing places the dogs can't reach..she's not fixed yet, but I'll tellya, if she doesn't clean up her act when I do get her fixed, it's Outside for her...really, a fine subject for a separate rant...).  But the sweets likes to adopt PEOPLE, and down and out people, at that. (Why the hell couldn't he bring home a Rockefeller?! Oh, right, they have homes already.)  So, we also have what I call a 'pet vet'.  He's a Vietnam veteran (two Purple Hearts, and living on someone else's charity-previously, he lived in his van.  That's what service to this country will earn you.)  So, our pet vet needs a ride to the Veteran's Hospital.  Off we tool in Rosie, down the highway.  We come to a construction site (really, good to see the economy is doing so well!), I look for big orange signs telling me what speed is expected, see none, and go the speed of everyone around me.  We cruise by a Statie, my pet vet tells me he was making 'slow down' motions at me, it's too bloody late for me to do anything about it, and...you guessed it, up my bum he comes screaming, pulling my poor Rosie over.
    Now, I just put Rosie on the road the week before, and I had seven days to get her inspected.  Well, now, wouldn'tcha just guess, it was day number 8 when Mr. Statie pulled me over.  But, it gets richer than that-Mr. Statie says that my sticker is FAKE.  False, faux, not real, not gen-u-ine State of Massachusetts issue.  I gaped at him and stuttered 'I just put this on the road last week...' 'That doesn't matter!' he roars. 'It's your vehicle, it's your responsibility!' He stalks off to make trouble, and I subside into stormy tears.  As my best friend noted the other day, only I could summon a state cop away from a detail.  And the sweets has been tooling around for months in another Dodge with a many years dead rejection sticker...but only I would get pulled over on day #8.
  Well, Mr. Statie decided to be kind.  He comes back to the truck, fussing and grumping about what a shitbox she is, how dangerous she must be (well, now, hey there, the brakes work so long as you keep the fluid topped off! And her blinkers work...really, don't pick on my Rosie!), how she reeks of fuel (an untruth-she reeks of exhaust, and richly at that, but fuel she chugs, not leaks...), and then gives me a ticket for 'failure to inspect', telling me that if I check off 'I request a hearing' on the back and go get a rejection sticker, I won't have to pay the $50 fine.  Also informing me that he could have written a criminal infraction with about $500 worth of fines.  Well, thanky kindly, sir, you took more than $500 off of my life due to stress, but thanky anyway, away we go.
    So, later that day, I decide it behooves me to go fetch a rejection sticker.  I go to the nearest inspection station, pay ahead for my rejection sticker ('How'd it feel?' the clerk asks me. 'Oh, I didn't get it yet!' I reply, 'I just know I will.') and go wait by the bay.  Inspection boy comes out, I say to him "Hey, for the sake of expediency, if I show you a visual problem, can we just print the rejection sticker and get this done with?"  I was remembering another time when the poor little car I had was driven much harder than was my wont by a diligent serviceperson.  Seriously, I thought the engine was going to leap out of the hood and run, screaming, for the woods.  But not this time.  I tell my friendly inspection dude "The muffler's cracked."  "Oh, is it a safety issue?" he queries. "Hanging off?"  "No!" I laughed, "it's just cracked and useless."  "Oh," he says "as long as it's not a safety problem, because then I'd have to issue you a safety rejection and you couldn't drive the vehicle."  Your correspondent listens to the dull thump of her heart landing in her boots and sighs.  "Just my luck." I thought. "Just my bloody luck.  Sure I'd get a safety rejection, and how, prithee, is one to come up with the $500 or so needed to repair the vehicle if one can't drive it to work?!"  But I despaired too soon!  Rosie, being an '83, needn't pass emissions (yay! cuz she wouldn't! probably not even with a new muffler!), just safety...and our friendly inspection guy was so kind to my truck!  He grabbed the front tires and shook them ('what's that to check for? To make sure the wheels aren't falling off?' I quipped.), tested the brakes, checked the headlights, decided to ignore the broken windshield wiper motors...and gave my girl a fresh new valid sticker!! YAY for small miracles! YAY for Rosie the Ram!
My pet vet needed to go to the VA again the next day...so we chose an alternate route.  Mr. Statie wouldn't have been as pleased with Rosie's new sticker as I was.  And he probably would have thrown me in the clink, and most important...well, kinda...the kind inspection station would have been in deep doodoo. Can't have that, now.  We Dodge drivers have honor, after all.