Me: "...and there's no off-street parking and I don't have any change and the meters won't take a twenty and I accidentally turned into a bank employee parking lot and I was trapped like a cow in a slaughterhouse chute and now I'm turning out of another employee parking lot and I don't have a hands-free phone..."
Shootin' Buddy: "Okay, where are you now?"
Me: "I'm near the capitol building... uh... the corner of Ohio and... oh, something named after some other Yankee place, I'm sure. I think I can... Yes... I'm turning left on Ohio."
Shootin' Buddy: "Just come back north on Illinois and park by a meter near the restaurant. I'll come feed it when I get there. I'll let you have both hands to drive now. *click*"
I turn back north on Illinois and realize...
Shootin' Buddy: "Hello?"
Me: "Uh, never mind. There's a parking garage right next to the restaurant. I'm parked in it now."
D'oh!
One thing that's always baffled me is the profusion of exotic automobiles you'll see in downtown Indy of a weekend evening. The streets around the circle are almost crowded with exotic German, American, British, and Italian cars. Why anybody would take a stiffly-sprung, low-slung sports car with low-profile tires and a manual transmission and go drive it through that cratered hellhole of traffic lights and one-way streets at parking lot speeds for fun is completely beyond me.
For most owners, expensive sports cars are status symbols in which to be seen. Most of those cars will never see a winding country highway, much less any sort of racetrack. You would want to actually test the limits of the car's cornering and acceleration, but most of these owners wouldn't know how to do that.
ReplyDeleteIt's when I'm downtown that I wish I had a small SUV, like a RAV4 or CRV, instead of the Zed Drei. I can't imagine what driving a Gallardo or Viper SRT/10 down there is like...
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine even driving there period.
ReplyDeleteSome people will do anything for breakfast. lol
It's like all the high dollar sports cars in the DC area. What's the point when you're rarely doing more than 50 and the roads are potholed messes. I gave up being an auto enthusiast after moving here.
ReplyDelete4X4 anything. I took my girlfirend to NY city for the Weekend. She asked which car we were taking? I replied neither, we're taking the Diesel Tahoe as the potholes will kill your Toyota and I don't want to get my Maruader stolen or realigned. ;)
ReplyDeleteSports cars show up downtown 'cause they look bitchin' when they're parked around the circle. I think that's really the only reason. Of course, there's also the irony of phallic replacement surrounding a phallic symbol, but that's another thread.
ReplyDeleteYa know, sometimes a monument is just a monument and sometimes a stupid impractical half car is just a stupid impractical half car.
ReplyDeleteAt least that's what I remember Freud saying.
Shootin' Buddy
My car is usually very practical for what I need it to do: Getting me where I need to go without boring me to sleep in the process.
ReplyDeletePicking my car based on how well it performed downtown would be like picking my CCW pistol based on how well it performed on the steel critter range. Sure, I may occasionally use it for that purpose, but that's not what I bought it for. ;)
Used to go to Indy for the PRI (racing industry show) and if the underground garage was full I'd invariably pull into the one reserved for State Employees, then have to back out into the state employees trying to come in behind me and make a half u-turn to get going the right direction on the one-way street. Loved downtown Indy, hated parking there. To extend, paid high dollars for one of the nice hotels, figured I could park in their garage for free. But Nooooh, had to pay an extra $10 a night on top of $150 for the bleeping room. Might be one reason PRI is in Orlando now. Larry Weeks
ReplyDeleteDIMW said: "Some people will do anything for breakfast. lol"
ReplyDeleteNot sure where Tam had her breakfast, but clearly you have never broken fast at Acapulco Joe's.
A heart attack in every bite. I live to find an excuse to go downtown for breakfast. Their sausage gravy is to die for.
And you were driving your Beemer, so that means...?
ReplyDelete"And you were driving your Beemer, so that means...?"
ReplyDeleteIt would have been a long ride on the bicycle?
I'm guessing the guy with the Murcielago parked out front of the restaurant of a Saturday evening had other choices in the scuderia back in Meridian Hills...
It's simply an adaptation for folks who don't live near the ocean, otherwise they'd be sailing around getting drenched by 40 degree salt water.
ReplyDeleteYou see, wrestling with an overpriced and essentially useless bit of equipment is their way of showing how much better than the rest of us they are, doncha know.
"It's simply an adaptation for folks who don't live near the ocean, otherwise they'd be sailing around getting drenched by 40 degree salt water."
ReplyDeleteI don't know as I've seen these same people from Indianapolis sailing off Beverly Shores or Chief Justice Roberts hometown of Long Beach, Indiana.
They do much the same--get in everyone's way and ensure that they are noticed. :-)
"Everyone was looking at me."
Shootin' Buddy
"My car is usually very practical for what I need it to do: Getting me where I need to go without boring me to sleep in the process."
ReplyDeleteNo, apparently it's penis envy...or perhaps Joanna can tell us if it's only guys that supposedly have deep psychological issues that manifest in what type of automobile they drive. (yeah, yeah, you were just joking)
"Why anybody would take a stiffly-sprung, low-slung sports car with low-profile tires and a manual transmission and go drive it through that cratered hellhole of traffic lights and one-way streets at parking lot speeds for fun is completely beyond me. "
Same reason some big-boobed women wear a low cut top when it's freezing out, I reckon.
On the plus side, the 'own an exotic sports car and never changed oil in my life' types can be amusing, especially when you sidle up and tell them their henweigh is cracked.
Peter, sailing is hobby, religion, addiction, and redemtion, all in one package, a sacred and shining thing. A beautiful and masochistic excess that has to be felt, not explained.
ReplyDeleteOn my 31 feet of freedom, I am independent of anyone on earth (except the Coast Guard), and have options to tickle my soul.
Every time I'm out drifting for stripers south of Block Island, I think "190 magnetic for 11 days and I'm in Key West". From there, who knows?
Any doofus can drive a Viper, but just to get a sailboat out of the harbor, around the buoys, and back to the slip requires many hours of experience. Using every tweek of breeze and current, that sir takes some skill. I'm a former powerboater, but now, it's like riding a bus.
OA,
ReplyDelete"(yeah, yeah, you were just joking)"
Wouldn't know.
My idea of fun isn't to go driving through potholes, denting my wheels at 5mph so everybody can see what brand motorcar I drive. I don't go "cruising". I just don't get that "HEY, EVERYBODY! LOOK AT MY STUFF! AREN'T I COOL?" urge that some folks seem to have.
It's a free country, though. Just because I don't get it doesn't mean I don't think they should be allowed to do it. If you want to Turtle Wax your rod and do slow laps around the Gas'N'Sip, then get down with your bad self; it's a free country. :)
I think you just described 80% of the custom 1911 owners, Tam.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of a "hey, look what I've got!" type, either. Never seen the point in announcing you have expensive stuff to steal at home, especially with the recession.
"Any doofus can drive a Viper..."
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Vipers don't have an automatic transmission.
Chick magnet. Alla same 61 ci Harley or 74 ci Indian was. Or that Dusenberg phaeton that used to park on the main highway to Speedway.
ReplyDeleteThe Deusy was enough to carry a coffin, the preacher, six pallbearers, and enough mourners for a respectable funeral to ye olde plantation in one vehicle.
Saturday night - it contained one boy, and seventeen gals.
Stranger
"Any doofus can drive a Viper..."
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Vipers don't have an automatic transmission.
Right out for me, then. The only time I drove stick, it was a 20-year-old John Deere riding mower. (Not my fault, though -- my dad has a leg brace.)
As for my previous comment, I was just pointing out the Freudian implications brought up by the juxtaposition of certain objects. Read into it what you will. The biggest car nut I know is my sister.
WV: grene. With envy? Why yes. Yes I was.
Old Chevy K-5... scares everything off the damn road... and will move anything in your parking spot.
ReplyDeleteJoanna, these are the jokes.
ReplyDeleteRemember, drink up but tip your waitresses.
Thank you, good night,
Shootin' Buddy
They drive these cars in Los Angeles. Are you telling me Indy has wussy drivers? If these cars can do the potholes of LA, they can do the potholes anywhere!
ReplyDelete