Gawd and ever'body do I LOVE me some GEO METRO. It's all I can do to stop myself from drooling all over this have-to-do-for-right-now picture that I have uploaded to my blog. I think of that song, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz..." and just sing along in tcwh time, substituting Geo Metro where it fits. Or where it doesn't fit, because let's face it, ya'll. Geo Metros are not the most popular cars on the face of the earth. But they have brought me great amusement, from watching my super conservative, never curse, hard-working father drive my little car for 5 years to and fro with my rebellious "Dive NAKED!" plastered on the back, to me driving all my friends crazy trying to get from Point A to Point B. I don't think my dad does ANYTHING naked, for that matter. I DO think that all my friends will rub their necks timidly and look around for me and my STICK-Y GEO before saying, "Alex? Yeah! She was a great driver!"
That I blame entirely on Momma and the two gentlemen below:
The twins. And a very college-y, sorority-y, chubby cheeked me. I was 19. I think that's still some baby fat on my cheeks. Cindy Lou Yoo HOO! The boy on the right belonged to me for some time. He was an extremely driven individual, putting himself through pre-med. Unfortunately, that no nonsense attitude also carried over into our relationship. Specifically, he made me nervous. "Dammit Alex!" he'd bang his hand on the dashboard the fifth time after I'd stalled. "You're ruining the car! It's so easy! Let up on the clutch. Down! On! The! Gas!" I guess he was a little impatient, considering that he'd been driving stick since he was about 5 and this was my first car, meaning I'd been driving stick, oh...for the last five minutes. Self-sufficient. That's what he was.
When I DID learn to drive, it was that harried, whiplash jerk that left everyone wishing they'd hopped in with someone else. "Oh God, is it my driving?" I'd obsess. "No, no, no, he just wanted to ride with his girlfriend," they'd say, or whatever other excuse tumbled out of their mouths. I drove so badly for so long that it began to be a running joke. Lurch. Squeak. Grind. Lurch. Squeak Grind. From light to light to light all the way down to the French Quarter of wherever we were headed that day.
Occasionally, we'd venture out to Pancho's. The college students' haven. A buffet style all you can eat Mexican restaurant, the guys went for the beans and stayed for the sopapillas. I liked the Sweet Tea - cuz you just know they have jarras of that all over Mexico, right, y'all? I say occasionally, because we often found ourselves in a vehicle loss. We considered ourselves fortuitous if we could round up enough cars to take the 20 some starving people out to Metairie and back.
One blustery Saturday, sitting around the keg, someone stood up and announced that it was time for Pancho's. "Pancho's!" we agreed, and I hung back hoping that someone else would be comandeering my little roller skate. Not so. All the boys were drunk, and I, I was unluckily sober. "You will drive, Ali," Dan said. Not so much telling me, but convincing himself, I think. "Yes," Dave echoed, "And we will all get there in one piece." Oh, those boys were definitely on crack thinking that we'd have a peaceful ride.
Off we set, me at the wheel, five large men with beer in large party cups (to allow room for the beer to splash up when I inevitably lurched, squeaked and jerked forward. College people! Smart are we!) scrunched into my car, kind of like the clowns at the circus. We got along fine as I rolled through the stop signs, just kind of pausing - to avoid stalling the car. As we approached the section of road with all the stoplights right before we were able to merge on to I-10, I started to get nervous. Stoplights were the bane of my existence at that point in time. The key to my undoing.
At stoplight one, I rolled to a stop, pressing on the break gently. "Take a drink now!" Dan yelled, excitedly, "she has to start up again and y'all know what that means!" "Spillage!" they yelled. "Not on my new interior!" I panicked, completely disregarding the fact that it was both flammable and ugly. My male company laughed, completely amused by my girlishness. I'd show them. Red. Yellow. Green. I eased my foot down on the clutch and got ready to give my girl a little bit of gas. Not enough. Crunch. Jerk. "EREEEEEE," she complained before lurching foward to a stop. "Dammit, Ali! I'm soaking wet back here!" unidentified male lamented. "Well, join the fucking club, because if you'll notice, we all look like we pissed ourselves back here." This was getting to be too much pressure for me. "EEEEE - I can't drive, I can't drive, I can't drive" I chanted, changing to "Don't turn green, don't turn green, don't turn green, don't turn green," wringing my hands on the steering wheel. "Don't fluster her, y'all! She'll keep stalling!" Dan warned, having been through this very cluster of stoplights with me before.
In an heroic effort to save what little was left of my driving confidence as well as what little was left in their cups, the gentlemen offered to chug as much as they could of their beers in between stoplights as to avoid overflow when I lurched and stalled, whipped and lashed, heaved and ho'ed the little car towards Pancho's. After three lights of showers, my backseat riders were soaked from crotch to shoe. Drunk with chugged beer and dashed hopes of staying dry, they giggled madly at the people driving by us, waving and pointing, yelling out the window "GEO METROS make us wet!" Which is a lot funnier if you're in New Orleans and in college and drunk. Except for me.
"Last light, KittyCat," Dave mused. "I've got about 3 inches of beer left in my party cup, 2 inches of it foam from all the sloshing. There's no way you can get this in my lap. If you do, DAMN, GIRL! You'll go down in my history book as my hero for being the WORST. DRIVER. EVER." With that declaration, he raised his cup and said, "To Kitty Cat's car wash! Lather! Rinse! Repeat!" and they all laughed and toasted each other before waiting patiently for the light to turn green, because there is always time for a toast in New Orleans, y'all.
And me? Me, I lurched through that last light like a champ, leaving Dan and Dave and the rest of them soaked through. And that, I think neither Momma nor the one of the two gentlemen will take credit for.