Me and My Beard: Day FIfty Eight

Dear Readers,
      Since we are kind of on the subject of cars I have driven, another interesting car I drove was a 1995 Thunderbird. At least I think that was the year. I had a 1999 Ford Ranger that I drove into the ground. It finally gave up on me. I blew a head gasket and leaked water into one of my pistons, actually causing it to bend one of the piston rods. It was pretty sad. I really liked that little truck. At the time of it's death, I didn't have the money to get another car. So, my mother in law Karen let me use her old Thunderbird. It was a Magenta/Purple/Red color. It had a ton of miles on it and it was a little beat up. I drove it for the first eight months or so with the hydro pump to the power brakes out. So I had to drive my foot into the brake pedal to get it to slow down and stop. I got a really good leg workout driving that thing. Then, about two months into driving the beast, the power sun roof became loose and wouldn't stay shut while driving it. Once you got it up to about fifty miles per hour, the sun roof would inch open, making it really loud to drive anywhere. I figured out how to hold it into place while driving on the freeway. So I would steer with one hand and reach up to hold it into place with my other hand and then slam my foot down to slow down. It was kind of fun to drive with all it's quirks. Then, about six months into driving the beast, the window on the driver side wouldn't work properly. If you did manage to get it to roll down, you would never get it to roll back up. I had to roll it down to a certain point where I could still grip the window and physically pull it back up. That was only on the good days it actually rolled down. Most days I could see it laughing at me as I went through a drive thru only to have to open the car door to pay and receive my food. It was pretty annoying. I stopped going through drive thru windows and just parked it. Needless to say, that was one interesting car.
      Driving that car, I also found out how popular that car is for criminals. I was pulled over twice in one year, simply because of the car. The first time was because a car with that description had just been stolen. I had to explain that the car wasn't in my name because it belonged to my mother in law. Who wasn't my mother in law at the time, she was my girlfriends mom. I had to sit there and wait twenty minutes while he verified all the information was correct. That was fun. Are you catching the sarcasm there? By the way, both of these times being pulled over I had to open the door because the window wasn't working. It was great when they were yelling at me to keep the door closed and I was yelling back explaining how the window didn't work. Fantastic.
      The second time being pulled over was because a bank had just been robbed and the getaway car was a 1995 Magenta Thunderbird. As soon as he walks up he explains what was happening and says I can go, because I don't fit the description of a "Hispanic" male. I jokingly told him that I was actually Hispanic, to which he replies that this was a skinny Hispanic male. So I thank the cop for calling me a fat white guy and got to go on my merry way. I didn't actually thank him for that, but you can imagine how I felt about that. Dumb cop. All because of an old hand me down Thunderbird. Which I am very thankful for having, even with all the problems.

This Day In History: 1670
Jews are expelled from Austria

Born This Day: 1902
John Steinbeck - Nobel Prize winning American author

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."

- Albert Einstein