Got a new Car

My wife bought me a new car. Not the car I wanted, I wanted a Corvette, after some negotiating and a considerable reduction in my desires. She purchased a Mini Cooper S model. It is certainly debatable whether this is my car or if I got her old car. She has a big red school bus, a Honda Element that now seems to be my principle ride. I get to buy gasoline for both vehicles, maintain the tire pressure and oil level. Heck of a deal.

The new Mini Cooper has 160 on the speedometer. That is American MPH, not that lame French KPH, 160 all the way over in the five o’clock position. It has a “Sport” setting for engine and another “Sport” setting for suspension. It drives like a go cart on cocaine.

I needed to find a piece of road with a 160 MPH speed limit.

Cruising the local roadways the best available was 75 MPH, and that was crowded with rush hour traffic moving at 25 MPH. Pulling onto the shoulder I nailed the throttle and then had to immediately stand on the brakes, someone was changing a flat tire.

Returning to the fast lane, which was now blazing at 35 MPH, I spotted a police car ahead. Weaving through the traffic I pulled in behind the cop, flipped on my 4 way blinkers and motioned for him to pull over.

He pulled onto a side road with me 2 feet off his rear. I slowly step out of my Mini Cooper and saunter forward. Approaching the policeman, and using a deep male command voice, I say.

“Remain in your vehicle, Sir.”

He looks at me.

“Do you know why I have stopped you, Sir?”

He looks at me.

“I need a public roadway with a 160 MPH limit, Sir.”

He loosens the safety on his hand gun. Police are unfamiliar with the protocol of being pulled over. I decide to let him off with a warning, this time.

Using Google map I locate an abandoned air strip and immediately planned a high speed test run. The old air strip is located down some really old roads. Road maintenance is a low priority in my county, one of the many benefits of our low tax rate. We have one old guy with a wheel barrel. He is near retirement and his commitment questionable. He says he is taking the shovel with him upon retirement. The county has reduced the pay scale for road maintenance and his new apprentice doesn’t speak English, he is not an illegal, he is a Texas high school graduate. The entire road maintenance crew (both of them) had been dispatched to fix one of the small pot holes on this really old road. The wheel barrel was stuck in big pot hole. As I passed, they communicated to me with hand signals, a single digit hand signal, I took this to mean I could only use one lane. The farm tractor approaching had the same understanding. I quickly engaged the “Sport” suspension setting and weave between pot holes, sliding pass the farm tractor I find hay bales throw off the trailer by pot holes, I miss the first one, miss the second one, nail the third one dead on, the one that had been sitting in cow dung. Now I would have to wash my new car.

I finally arrived, more or less safely, at the abandoned air field. The local motorized hang glider club is arranged from end to end, sorta hanging out, ya know. A few more were hanging in trees around the edge of the air strip.

I didn’t like their plan of attaching collapsible cloth wings atop the Mini Cooper and racing off that shaky ramp they had constructed. I did hang out for a while, placing bets on which would clear the trees.

Returning home the wife got upset with me. I had forgotten to pick up that quart of milk.