But Wait! There’s More!

When the nice man came to take the car away, I had only managed to loosen one of the two screws that fasten the rear license plate to the car. I asked him for his help with the other one and that’s when the final figurative wrench was thrown into this literally life-or-death transaction.

He said not that’s part of the deal because cars with CA license plates are worth more because they don’t have rust from road salt. Bitch, please. This is bullshit because surely I'm not the first to notice that California has a longer ocean coastline than any other state so the likelihood of a car living near the beach where the dew is salty from ocean spray is higher here than in, say Indiana. Also, you don’t need the license tag to establish California registration when I’m holding out a registration paper from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. But I choose my battles and this was one I was not, let’s just say, too invested in.

There was still some white-knuckled suspense when he noticed a slight discrepancy between the vehicle registration number (which the Brits identify as the chassis number, not the engine number) and the various pink slips, certifications, expired registrations and other paperwork. The title to the car was in TOG's deceased ex-spouse's name too. The driver took pics and sent them to his boss and talked to his boss on the phone, and at one point I heard him say, so shall I take the car or not?  The whole world held its breath long enough for me to devise several murder suicide scenarios. 

Then he handed me an envelope with the certified check and I signed the papers and cried like a baby and DDK (Doctor Doctor K) handed me a glass of good bourbon. DDK later took my picture standing in the empty carport with the glass in one hand and the check in the other. For the record, my tears had dried by the time the picture was taken.

So, I took videos of the poor car having its rotten tires inflated so they would roll when the big chains pulled the car up and onto the tilted bed that would carry it to some rich playboy in Dubai who would race it with camels and drive it into a bridge abutment within days of it’s glorious restoration. One of the tubes started swelling out of a hole in the rotted tire like a dirty black piece of bubble gum. It popped as loud as a gun shortly after the truck bed was tilted back to level, but it heroically held out long enough to get the poor car on the truck before it gave its life for the cause of freedom.

So, I texted TOG with the half dozen short videos showing the car being loaded onto the truck and driving down the driveway, into the street, down to the stop sign and out of my life forever. It was a very emotional afternoon involving much medicinal bourbon and texting.

ME:  Bad news. The license tag had to go with the car because it’s worth more as a CA car.

WISIMH:  Which of course we both know is crap because I also handed the driver an old title I’d unearthed with CA DMV all over it. And plus, we both know the real reason is that I’m punishing you for being such a jerk about this entire episode. The student has now become the passive aggressive master.

TOG:  That’s illegal. It’s a personalized plate with my HAM radio call sign and its illegal for anyone else to have that.

ME:  Perhaps if they tried to drive it with the registration sticker from 1988, but they probably won’t do that. At least until they get new tires.

TOG:  I have newer stickers. I kept registering the car through 2003. I just didn’t put them on the tag.

WISIMH:  I’m shocked. Shocked that you managed to keep throwing money away paying to register the car for years and not even bothering to put the tags on. This is so unlike you I feel like I hardly know who I’m texting to.

ME:  Well, you have the buyer’s contact info. You can call him and offer to send him the updated stickers and registration papers in exchange for the license tag itself which is illegal for him to have.

TOG:  I’ll give the stickers to you when we meet for lunch tomorrow.

WISIMH:  And I’ll give you the gold doubloons I found in the trunk and we’ll call it even.

ME: Perhaps you have missed something here. Perhaps you don’t know how done I am with anything ever having to do with that car ever again.

Yeah, I said that not in my head.

When I met him the next day, I had an envelope of paperwork including some amazing handwritten correspondence from the manufacturer as well as remaining documentation and paperwork about the car. Before I could hand it to him, TOG handed me a small stack of adhesive blue registration stickers for the dozen or so years he’d been planning to restore the car. 

I put them in the envelope and gently placed it in his hands. It was a short, sober ceremony in which so much was so solemnly conveyed without a single word being spoken.  It was a shared moment of silence for the dear departed car that had for so long symbolized all that regrets we both had about our complex and unrestored relationship. Now all that’s left is our abiding love and deep respect for each other. And a single room full of crap. 

I Sold the Car!!!!!

Terry Pratchett says if you use 5 exclamation marks it’s a sure sign you’re insane. I’ve never felt saner either, which is probably another symptom of insanity.

It took literally – and I use that term literally – 15 minutes from the time I listed it on a website provided by my personal and ever-merciful god, and the website guy called and made me an offer, and I called TOG who gave his blessing (with the enthusiasm Marie Antoinette skipped up the steps to the guillotine), and I called the guy back and accepted. He picks it up today.

Part of our subsequent text conversations:

ME:  So, the deal is done. The guy will pick the car up tomorrow.

TOG:  Is the guy A.M.?

ME :   Why, yes it is.

WISIMH:  WT bloody F?  You’ve known about this guy all along and could have thrown me this bone months, nay, even years ago? I probably should have consulted with the garden gnome about resolving this matter. I would probably have received better advice.

TOG:  Don’t give him the shop manual autographed by Donald Healey.

ME:    Too late. That was one of the pics I sent and narrative included it with car. It’s part of the deal.

TOG:  Be sure to remove license tag. That’s a personalized CA plate with my HAM radio call sign.

WISIMH:  Which you’ll put in another of the unpacked boxes in your closet? Why the hell not? Is this more last-minute crap you’re assigning me just to make me miserable? Do you have a list? Are there still obstacles you’re going to impose between me and getting this piece of shit out of the carport? What the hell is a rhetorical question?

ME:    Tried. (And I really did try.) Can’t. Too dark. I only have one wrench and need two: one to hold the nut on front and one to hold the bolt on back. (Or maybe the other way around, how the hell do I know?)

TOG:  Might be able to use slotted screwdriver.

ME:    Actually, according to me, and the flashlight, and the single wrench I have, there is no slotted screw. So, no.

WISIMH:  And thanks for the timely advice about the screwdriver and for taking the good wrenches when you moved to leave in the carton where I packed them where you’ll never use them. I'll take them back when I deliver the license tag so you'll have room in the box to store the license plate.

TOG:  And look in trunk. Who knows what might be in there.

WISIMH:  Gold doubloons, maybe? How about a shrink ray gun? Maybe you put the jam in there. You know, not the jam from yesterday, not the jam for tomorrow, but the jam that we will never have today.

ME:   Can’t access trunk. Key won’t turn lock to open. (And I really went back out and tried, more fool me.)

TOG:  Just turn knob and pull hard. It sticks.

ME:    Maybe tomorrow in the daylight when I don’t have to worry about lurking black widow spiders and I don’t smell like Liquid Wrench, which by the way, makes the dust from the dust cover stick to me like feathers to tar. It’s a charming way to spend happy hour. My red wine has a delicate WD40-like finish.

TOG: There might still be things in the side pockets or clove compartment or trunk…

ME:   (Crickets)

WISIMH:  You ever watch Futurama?  There’s a character named Kif, the amphibian alien officer on the Nimbus, commanded by clueless jerk Zapp Brannigan. When Zapp delivers some stupid/dangerous command, Kif makes this sigh that encapsulates his Sisyphean exhaustion and existential despair at the futility of living a meaningful life in a universe where everyone is mad as a hatter or a hoarder with late onset passive aggression. I can only aspire to emulate that sigh, although I’m trying very hard right now. The degree of denial and delusion TOG suffers from always ceases to amaze me.

Then, before saying good night last night, this:

TOG:  Even with restoration of $20k on top of the $15k a tidy profit can still be made. And it is not going to cost any $20k to restore.

ME:   Gee, really? Wish we’d thought of that a few years ago.

TOG:  I did. That’s why I kept it. The restoration could take place anytime and the longer I waited the more the finished product would be worth. Now you do appreciate that a $7k car in rusty condition is worth $15k to someone.

WISIMH:   AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! THAT'S why you kept it? Give it a fucking rest. My to do list for after the car is towed away is to put away the ax and clean up the blood. I will then go out to lunch and order a Bloody Mary and a shrimp cocktail.

ME:  I’ve always appreciated it. I just with you’d taken initiative to sell it when it was restored. Or to have it restored again.

TOG: (Crickets).

Games, Laws of Thermodynamics, Community Property, and Hoarding

So, The Other Guy moved out a while ago so I could clear out the 30 years of hoarded crap, first of course carefully pulling out anything of any worth.  Which includes the iconographic piece of expensive crap – a classic sports car lovingly and expensively restored 30 years ago and then covered and left on the carport to succumb to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, mice, stray cats, and - one memorable summer - bees.

This car – if restored - is listed as having a retail value in the range of  $48,600 to $162,000, with an average retail price of $78,300. I will be lucky if I can get $8,000 for it. For the 27 years we’ve been married I’ve asked him to fix it or sell it, and he repeatedly promised that this would be the year that would happen. Actually, that’s not true. I it took me about 10 years to realize this was the Ignore It and It Will Go Away Game, and I’d never win and I gave up asking. So, like all his problems, if he leaves them alone long enough, they become mine. I think that’s a sub-sub-paragraph in my state’s community property laws: Problems created by one spouse after marriage must be resolved by the other spouse after the problem-causer ignores them long enough.

So, over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to put together a few paragraphs and photos to comprise an eBay ad. We’ve been texting about info I need for the past month or so. I provide excerpts below. In the course of this exercise, I have discovered what I call the First Law of Hoarding: The more sacred the hoarded item is to the passive-aggressive old hoarder, the less cooperative the harder will be and the less forthcoming with information. A corollary to this law is that the hoarder will delay, misunderstand,  misdirect, provide false information, and fail to disclose important and easily-available information until well after the responsible adult has wasted time following the misdirect.

ME:  Did you ever e-mail me a few paragraphs on the make, model, history and provenance of the car like I’ve asked several times?

TOG:  Asked? Several times? What is it you want?

ME:  See above.

WISIMH:  What do I want? An airtight plan, a foolproof alibi? A time machine? A lobotomy? I want that piece of crap out of my driveway and some money to paint the house so I can sell it. As I may have mentioned several times over the years. He wants there to be a Law of Selective Dementia where he only has to do stuff he claims to remember, and then only after repeated reminders and requests. But I refuse to recognize this stupid law, insisting instead he is playing the Let’s See How Quickly I can Piss Off My Spouse By Playing Dumb Game. I usually lose this one too.

TOG:  Did you get the urls I sent?

WISIMH:  Ah, so instead of researching the value, writing down some numbers and texting me the summary like I asked, you invested 5 minutes using the google – in a stupider way than I would – to find some cars of your make and model that are selling for high retail in fully restored condition. Never saw that coming.

ME:  Looking now. Summarize for me.

TOG:  Looked on bymost as an investment. Unrestored running $12 to $20. UNRESTORED!

WISIMH:  Yeah, no. The “unrestored” ones in your links aren’t filled with mice shit and shredded paper mice nests, rust, dirt, cracked paint and all plastic or rubber parts dry rotted or covered with silver tape.

ME:  I can’t find any narrative about your car. Did you email me w more detail and provenance?

TOG:  Will do so again when I get back….

WISIMH: Right! You generally enter the wrong dates on your phone calendar for lunch with friends and then go down the street to the restaurant on the wrong day. Of course this would be the day you’re out on your go-go instead of home watching Bait Car.

ME: Great. Say when you got it restored and about that badge thing. … Also what’s special about this particular model.

TOG:  Your cloud should have more info from me.

WISIMH:  Ahh, my cloud! I would escape to that legendary cloud where everything you do is correct, responsible, proper, timely and mildly helpful. I believe it’s full name is Cloud Cuckoo Land and it exists only in your mind. In my imaginary cloud I would have sold this house by now and moved to something I can afford - in an different zip code from your cloud.

I received a two sentence e-mail with make year and model number which I already knew and which later turned out to be partially wrong. Meanwhile, I spent the afternoon on the web researching history of car and value like I'd asked him to do. I also took the nasty dirty car cover off and took some photos but didn’t have the heart to open the tonneau cover and look into the passenger compartment, the engine or the trunk. The car looks so rotten and messed up is made me sad as well as dirty.

Yesterday, I got three different e mails with over a dozen pictures. Each picture is 34 by 45 inches or something ridiculous, and has to be substantially fixed in photoshop as well as resized. That took another afternoon. The pictures are 10 years old and the car now bears a slightly different resemblance to the pictures: like my high school graduation pictures to my current driver's license picture. 

TOG:  I’m sending pictures taken when it was restored in 1979.

WISIMH:  Ahh, more pictures all bunched together and in need of editing and captioning as out of date. Thanks big guy.

ME:  The website lists original paint colors and your car isn’t painted in original colors. And what’s with the British-shaped license plate. Was that a genuine British License tag?

(I’ll skip you the suspense and say right now that this second question was completely ignored. Short, Attention, and Span are TOG’s middle names. But to be fair, what was I thinking asking two questions at one time?)

TOG:  The color is definitely wrong on my car because… (who cares?). However a number of Healys with LeMans kit were single color and mine was a total red inside and out.

WISIMH:  See? This is what he does? He ignores the question and answers another question you didn’t ask. This usually leads to the Twenty Questions Game, where I try to dumb down my actual questions, give up on two-part questions and put them in yes/no format. But to be perfectly honest I give up after about three tries these days.

TOG:  Did you find the manual the keys in the plaque that says it’s a Lemans get

WISIMH: Yes. That’s exactly what he texted. I call that the Let’s Guess what Spellcheck Changed and What You Really Meant Game. To be perfectly honest, I usually give up before guessing. Spellcheck often makes more sense than TOG.

ME: Orig color was Reno Red. Got it. Looking for key. Can’t get into back room until X is home and I can climb over boxes without worrying that the cat will get into the hoarding room and disappear. (Notice I said “back room” this fact will be important later).

Now comes the good part. The game I’ve been playing off and on for 27 years about putting more money in to get more money out. The game TOG refers to below as the Who Wants to Invest Game. I should mention that last month after months of nagging he found the only local reputable guy who restores these cars and he said he’s simply not interested – too busy and not worth it these days. He promised to drop by and at least take a look at the car. You’ll never guess this: he never showed up! TOG never followed up! I never saw any of this coming!

TOG:  Okay with the gentlest hands my car should end up looking like that $159,000 one. Want to invest???

WISIMH:  Proceed with caution. Don’t put words into text that might be admissible in evidence at your murder trial.

ME:  There’s no way I’m going there. You had 25 years and that ship sailed… I’m thinking advertise as a “project” but I’m not even willing to wash it inside and out and try to make it look prettier in pictures.

WISIMH:  You had 27 years my love. TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS! Just now, if you were motoring toward me on the street riding your go-go calling for help I would run the other way, run up to some stranger's front door and pound on it until they let me in and then slam it behind me and pretend I lived there. 

So I took pics and drafted an ad with results of my research on history of this model and comparable pricing. I was just about to send the 3 page document to him for review. You know, the one he should have put together…

This morning I decided to open the top to get pics of interior. Couldn’t master snap closures. It took several pictures and texts to get instructions because we played Twenty Questions and Misdirect by ignoring the question asked. Then I couldn't figure out how to open the engine compartment and complained about the rat poop.

  

TOG:  All rodent stuff is new since (November)…

WISIMH: Liar liar pants on fire. No. An elementary school book on archeology would provide instructions on how to unearth layers old enough to carbon date.

TOG: Hood latch I think is “T” shaped. That know near heatee I think is choke.

(Yeah, I don’t correct what he texts, it’s more fun this way)

ME:  (Including more pics) still not seeing hood release. Is hood release on dash or under?

TOG:  Under and up.

ME:  (Including more pics further under and further up and more treacherous to the photographer who is, let’s just say, mildly pissed by now) It’s purely nasty in there. No way this crap has only been here since November. OK I see pull knobs saying Choke and Air. Nothing else, no T pull.

TOG:  Sure. Pull

WISIMH: WTF?

ME: Pull What? Air? Choke? …

WISIMH: …Your wee-wee?...

ME:  ….And I’m pretty much done. I don’t want to get yersina pestis in the cut I just opened on my thumb. Just send me your pics of the engine.

TOG:  OK I think if you put your right hand thumb at the highest point of the dashboard the thinnest point – you would be right under your fingers.. Left of the theater and up.

ME: Nope. Done playing. (For the record, his text immediately above was the Agree on a Plan Then Change It Game). Feeling resentful that you left this mess for me to clean up.

TOG:  Ok sending picture.

There’s more but telling it makes me hear voices that might be telling me to harm myself. Possibly my own voice screaming very loudly and profanely.

I spend a few more hours with new pics. The ad is almost ready and it's up to 5 pages now.

Then he reminds me the shop manual personally autographed by Donald Healy is not in the back hoarding room but on a bookcase more easily accessible. Which he’s known all along but simply missed my references to the back room. Or not. But why did he wait to specify this location? I may have actually won a round here, saving myself from climbing over boxes in the hoarding room looking for something that wasn’t there.

This nevertheless adds several hours to my job as I have to find the book, take pictures, convert, resize and add them to the draft ad. This is where I find a certification with a gold seal that specifies a different model than he has been claiming this is for however many years this farce has gone on. The ad is now 7 pages and he's not responding to my texts because he had wine for lunch.

So there are two theories here. The man is the most passive aggressive gentleman in the universe who is intentionally gas-lighting me to drive me more insane than I think I am. Or, he is ready for the “memory care” unit and is no longer capable of communicating with his fellow men. In either event, this experience has left me slightly deader inside than I was, and possibly in the early stages of death by bubonic plague. 

In which case, I want my last words on this blog to be “Either this car goes, or I go”.

I'll Just Be A Minute

So. There was this guy in the parking lot this morning at the public garden where I volunteer. He had managed to parallel park perfectly, but at a right angle to the parking places that are clearly painted to indicate drivers should pull in facing the curb. He parked next to the curb like you would do on a city street.

Me:  Sir, maybe you would like to move your car into that handicapped spot.

WISIMH:  You know, so others could use one or two of the three places you just managed to fill. Just guessing here, but you seem crazy enough to deserve a handicapped spot.

Crazy Old Man:  I’ll just be a minute.

Me:  Well then that’s perfectly all right.

WISIMH:  You know, because it will give me time to slash your tires, you asshole. Your powers of logical reasoning take my breath away. Seriously. By that reasoning I could double park at the reservoir if I was quick about poisoning the city's water supply and didn't block any traffic while I was at it. Ok, not too logical but just as reasonable.

COM:  I’m just going to drop off this check at the office.

ME:  I’m headed that way. Would you like me to take it there for you? I’m a volunteer here so I’d be happy to deliver it.

COM:  (Looking at my sketchy attire and giving no thought to the fact that this is a garden and people who volunteer here often garden and thus get dirty and thus wear old clothes). Well, maybe, but it’s for my membership, and maybe I better take it there myself because my membership expired…

Me: I understand. Do you know where the office is?

WISIMH:  And you know, I could do what exactly with your stupid $25 check your paranoid old fool? Forge an endorsement because I look like a hungry homeless hobo? Maybe I’ll just eat the check you dork because I’m so desperately hungry. Besides, I could knock you over with this bucket I’m carrying and you’d break a hip and I could then steal the check, and I’d also take that 10% coupon for the early bird special at Applebee’s that I see in the pocket of your flannel shirt.

COM:  I’m sure I can find it.

Me:  Ok, well have a nice day.

WISIMH:  If your orienteering skills match your parking skills I’m likely to find your desiccated corpse under a bush next week. Serve you right, you distrustful awful driver.

And this is why I don’t give tours to members of the public, but instead work in the vegetable garden where I only have to talk to a few other volunteers who know what a kind and gentle soul I really am when properly medicated.