Switching Gears

When I was a very little girl, my dad used to spend a lot of time on the race track circuit kicking ass and taking names. My mom and I would travel with him, rooting him on and probably inhaling all kinds of wonderful things. Yay asthma! According to family legend, the first time I went to the races I was six weeks old. When the light turned green my body would levitate from all the noise. Because bringing a tiny baby to the race track is a super neato idea, right? I can't believe I am not deaf. However, I managed to survive and drink up a love of fast cars, burning tire smell, and OMG the smell of a greasy garage does something for me. No, that isn't twisted at all. Really.

When my father passed away I inherited a shitload of tools. When Teddy Bear moved in with me I found someone that shared my passion for going fast AND someone with the know-how to mess with cars. So hot! I am sure that with my tool collection I had Teddy Bear in the bag. Old chick? Check. Kid? Check. Baggage? Check. Tools? OH YEAH. Damn, where was the point? Oh, yeah. Remember the door handle that TB ripped off The Car? I promised a post about The Car. This post! How exciting! Let's do a pee-pee dance, shall we?

Thursday night I took a trip down to San Diego in The Car to hang out with LD2 and the cantelope that she apparently swallowed. This picture is an approximation of The Car, so you know kind of what I am talking about without skeeving me out too much. It's a convertible, it goes fast, and it is gray. I thought that the whole hauling ass with the wind in my hair thing would do my irritable mood some good. We had a great time and I had a little bit of frisky left upon arriving back in my home city. Fuck I hate calling this place home.

Somehow I managed to encourage not one but two cars to race me down the southern main strip of my city. Without even giving anyone the "hey baby, wanna race?" look. Not the "I'm going as fast as I can because I want a ticket or to cause death and dismemberment"type of race but the "light turns green punch it through a couple gears and then slow down upon hitting the speed limit" race. And I got schooled by a fucking Toyota Camry.

*pause for laughter*

I did try more than once. It was late, there was very little traffic and we caught several red lights in a row. It was close, but I lost. I know part of the problem is that I am still trying to dance the fine line between slamming the car into first, having all the weight shift to the rear and impotently spinning the front tires for a while OR starting too slowly and losing my ass. But a FUCKING CAMRY? A four-door sedan? What the fuckity fuck? I went home and moped to TB about my loss and he had the exact same reaction. Then we asked the innernets what the fuck was up with the 2008 Camry.

The four-door 2008 Toyota Camry with the bigger V6 has an automatic transmission and 270 horsepower. STOCK. The Car has 205hp stock but we guesstimate that it is about 250ish now. But can you fucking believe that shit? A CAMRY!!! TB talked to a good friend that has driven one and he says it fucking hauls off the line. I feel vindicated, however I still gave TB the pouty girl look and requested that The Car at least be equipped to kick a Camry's ass. Pu-lease!

Sidenote: I still own my super wimpy almost ten-years old Japanese four-door sedan. It is my daily driver. The Car is our summer fling and we're driving to Santa Barbara with the top down so WHEEEE!! car. Also, The Car gets similar gas mileage to the sedan, so I'm not killing the earth when I drive it around in a more sedate fashion. The only sucky part is that I am under strict orders to only fill up with super-duper gas. Do you have any idea how fucking expensive 91 octane gas in Southern California is these days?