Golden Age of Motoring

These people are actually really hot

My car's AC went out early this month, so I've been driving around in a kiln. I should be firing pottery on the back seat, while I'm running to the store and such. On Saturday, Lilah and I drove up to Excelsior Springs in 95 degree heat, to see Laura and Marc play at the Willow Spring Mercantile. I warned her it would be a long hot drive, but she came anyway. We ordered tall cold drinks at Willow Spring to recover. She got lemonade and I got an apricot mango tea that had peach nectar and syrup added to it, "in the southern tradition." It was wonderful. And seeing Laura and Marc play was worth a mild case of heatstroke.

I had planned to take the car into the shop this week, to get the AC fixed. But Sunday one of my power windows went out. It won't go back up. The mechanic says it will cost a heap of money to get the window fixed, and a heap of money to get the AC fixed. I got a leaky condensor.

Spend two heaps of money, or just one? If only one, which one? Better to roast slowly to a crisp, or risk the entry of rain, thieves, and wild animals? Funny how both mechanical failures affect my protection from the elements.

I'm at that point where I don't wanna sink a whole lot more money into this car. It's a good car. A classic Toyota Corolla from the 90's, before the era of runaway gas pedals. The engine is strong. The car starts up without a whimper, in all sorts of weather. But it's starting to rust and is slowly falling to pieces. The hinge on the sun-roof is broken, and so I have the roof duct-taped to keep it from rattling. The inside front passenger doorknob is broken. The CD player skips. The odometer clocks in at 210,000 miles. So maybe I should break down and get a newer car, but I like not having a car payment. It allows me to imagine that I'm not a slave to the man.

In the meantime, laying down 5 Benji's to put this jalopy on ice seems like an extravagence. So I'm gonna tough it out and go without AC. No factory air blowing fresh breezes on my skin. But it's okay. Summer's almost over. Just July and August left to go. What I'm telling myself and how I prefer to think of it, is that I'm returning to the golden age of motoring. Back to the days of shiny fins and chrome, when the highway was king, and people were sweating their butts off. I read that in 1960, only 20% of cars had air conditioning. By 1969, 54% of American cars were equipped with air conditioning. That means that the astronauts likely had air conditioning in their sports cars, but half the families who watched the first moon landing on July 20, 1969, didn't. Somehow that makes me feel better.

I am getting my window fixed. Like Gary Numan, I want to lock all my doors. And roll up my windows, when it's not 90 degrees. I want my car to be an insular bubble, keeping out the rest of the world. So no, I won't be taping garbage bags to my window just yet. But when the next window goes...

(insert eerie high-pitched wail of synth music here)