I bought a new Nissan back in March.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s an old Nissan, but it\u2019s new to me.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to buy a car \u2013 and had been free of one for almost 16 months \u2013 but I moved farther out into the suburbs, because it was cheaper, which meant that I had to get a car, which made it so that it wasn\u2019t cheaper to live farther out, so the moral of the story is that I should just live in DC and get rid of my car.
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But it\u2019s bad form to start with the moral, so I\u2019ll talk about the Nissan instead.\u00a0 I bought it from a friend, and there were three things wrong with it.\u00a0 Two obvious things, and one secret thing.<\/p>\n
The two obvious things didn\u2019t really bother me back in March.\u00a0 My friend told me the problems, and I pretty much said, yeah, yeah, just give me the fucking keys so I can go home and watch Doctor Who<\/em> and God today sucked and I hate the sun and Mankind is my enemy.<\/p>\n The first problem is that the rear speakers aren\u2019t hooked up.\u00a0 Which is fine because, in 1997, I went to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at the 9:30 club (with the same friend) and stood next to the speaker the whole time because that was cool.\u00a0 So now I can\u2019t hear anything if there\u2019s background noise.\u00a0 Which really sucks when you take a date to a bar or restaurant.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 You want my what in your what?\u00a0 You want\u2026what?\u00a0 You\u2019re very corny?\u00a0 Nevermind!\u00a0 Try the house salad!<\/p>\n I suck at dates anyway, so the added hearing loss makes them even more amusing for third party observers.\u00a0 I actually suck at any interaction involving women.\u00a0 I blame their tits.\u00a0 And hair.\u00a0 And eyes.\u00a0 And\u2026well, I could go on.\u00a0 But we\u2019re here to talk about my Nissan.<\/p>\n The speakers:\u00a0 Not a problem.\u00a0 Whatever.\u00a0 I just turn the radio up really loud.\u00a0 All I ever listen to is the oldies station anyway.\u00a0 So, okay, 1993.\u00a0 Same friend.\u00a0 Yellow Pinto far beyond the expected shelf life, and with a radio that was stuck not only at top volume but on an AM Spanish channel that was always playing weird mariachi music.\u00a0 I was packed in there with said friend, and a gigantic black guy, and an Arab who had these shiny fake four foot long dreads.\u00a0 It\u2019s Saturday night in always overcrowded Georgetown, and the car stalls right in the middle of a major intersection.\u00a0 Oncoming traffic is freaking out and honking at us, crowds of people are using the opportunity to cross everywhere, and there we are packed in like sardines with that mariachi music playing at full blast, the car belching smoke as my friend tries to get it started again.\u00a0 Looking back, as I write this, I realize that this friend, and all my car-related lore, are intimately entwined.<\/p>\n The second problem was that the air bag light is constantly flashing.\u00a0 It was disconcerting then, but I figured I\u2019d get used to it.\u00a0 My friend told me that he took it to the repair people and they said it would be a $500 job to fix it, and it didn\u2019t mean anything anyway, so he had been ignoring it for the past 10 years.\u00a0 My first question \u2013 and this is more directed towards Nissan and\/or the ether \u2013 why have a light that serves no purpose, except to eventually break for $500 a pop?\u00a0 Ah, well, maybe that question answers itself\u2026<\/p>\n I had some spare time the other day and, instead of just drinking at 8am and watching Doctor Who<\/em>, I decided to have different repair people look at the light.\u00a0 After six months, I\u2019ve grown tired of the alarming light flashing shenanigans.\u00a0 Sure enough, the repair people said blah blah, something or other, so and so, and it\u2019ll be a few hundred bucks.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t mean anything and it\u2019s not worth repairing, except for my own peace of mind.<\/p>\n Instead of engaging in a conversation along the lines of, you know, what the fuck, I was intimidated, as I often am by professional repair people, and I nodded and said, \u201cOh yes, of course!\u00a0 I see, I see!\u201d<\/p>\n My current plan is to just wait until the light burns out.\u00a0 Which it hasn\u2019t after 10 years of being broken\u2026 But I figure it\u2019ll be any day now.\u00a0 I only drive about six miles a week, if that, but I find myself thinking that, this time, after sitting under the shitbird tree outside my apartment for six days, it\u2019s going to be burned out and I\u2019ll be free.\u00a0 I suppose I\u2019ll be thinking that 10 years from now.<\/p>\n The third, secret problem was that the battery hadn\u2019t been changed since 1995.\u00a0 The tow truck driver scolded me and said that I should change my battery every three to five years and, narrowly avoiding asking \u201cwhat battery?\u201d, I told him that I just bought the car.\u00a0 He said I got ripped off.\u00a0 \u201cWho would buy a car with a 15 year old battery?\u00a0 Ha ha ha!\u201d and so on.\u00a0 I think he hated white people.\u00a0 I think lots of people hate white people.\u00a0 Which I don\u2019t understand\u2026 My family was far too poor to own slaves.\u00a0 Well, the Confederate branch was.\u00a0 The Union side of my family had the money to own slaves but, instead, they were really busy cheating Irish and Italian workers.\u00a0 Because if there\u2019s one thing real white people hate, it\u2019s the Irish and the Italians.\u00a0 Once this whole fluff with the blacks is forgotten, we\u2019ll get back to screwing over those motherfucking Papist pigs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I bought a new Nissan back in March.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s an old Nissan, but it\u2019s new to me.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to buy a car \u2013 and had been free of one for almost 16 months \u2013 but I moved …<\/p>\n