My BIL had a Pinto in college. He STILL has that freakin' thing 30 years later. He also still has a Delta 88 that he got 20 years ago and his new car, an Explorer. He drives the Pinto when it rains so his Delta 88 and Explorer won't get wet.

Yes, my BIL is a freak. I think that goes without saying.

I remember the time I rode in a Chrysler LeBaron back from a high school play rehearsal. The rehearsal had run late, so a bunch of us needed rides, and we didn't feel like calling our parents so late. The kid with the LeBaron volunteered his services, so we crammed seven people in that thing (three in the back with one person lying across them, and me in the passenger seat with someone on my lap, and the driver). The road out of the theater started with a very steep hill leading away from the canal, and for a few minutes we thought we'd have to have a few of us walk up the hill because that car was straining to make it as loaded up as it was.

Hard times test all of us--and they can certainly show us the brave heart of an organization with a history of corruption.

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For dear old Kobayashi, we did driver, person riding on hump between driver's seat and passenger seat, passenger, person sitting in passenger's lap, three across the back seat, each with a person in their lap, and then a final person lying across the top of them. I'm still not sure how we managed it and in retrospect the sheer stupidity of it registers in a way it didn't when we were all teenagers. Though it's a shame the driver was just giving people rides home, as the looks on people's faces had we showed up at a restaraunt or whatever and all poured out of there like a clown car would have been priceless.

I had another friend who also had a Renault Alliance (that he named the Koybayashi Maru because trying to keep everything in it working was an unwinnable situation)

I had a Renault Alliance (which is French for "piece of shit") whose engine caught fire while I was driving alone, on the highway, at 1 a.m.

Merde!

Ack, Steph. (And I think we made the same joke about the name.)

I had a Renault Alliance (which is French for "piece of shit") whose engine caught fire while I was driving alone, on the highway, at 1 a.m.

Heh, this reminds me of the joke that Fiat stands for "fix it again, Tony".

Happy Birthday, Lyra!

Theodosia, I'm sorry about the car theft. I hope it's reasonable to fix.

My first car was a '75 Chevy Malibu Classic (which was old, even then). I called her Bessie, because she needed a lot of encouragement, and it's one of those names that is easy to incorporate into encouraging phrases. One of the ball joints dropped right out of it, when I was driving my friend home, one night.

My next car was an '83 Olds Cutlass. It very much was my father's Oldsmobile, sadly. The next car was the first one I bought new, and by myself, and was a '91 Toyota Corolla. We still have it.

Was the Pacer the car that looked like an egg? Someone at my high school had a yellow car, and I think it was a Pacer. We used to call it "the egg".

ChiKat, if you're around, I just got off the phone with Berwyn, and they said that they're not taking any more clothes (out of the three trucks they're taking down to LA, one is almost completely full with clothes)--the contacts in LA said that they need food and water right now much more than clothes. I'm calling the SVDP store next to see if they still want clothes mailed down to them--if not, I might just drop them off at the local Goodwill instead.

Was the Pacer the car that looked like an egg? Someone at my high school had a yellow car, and I think it was a Pacer. We used to call it "the egg".

Yeah. Like a boiled egg, without the shell, being subject to higher-than-normal gravity.

With wheels.

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