The Dodge Dart

  Now that I was using my father’s car more often, my father started pushing me to get a new car of my own. I was in no rush because now I got to drive his white sports car around. I saved money by not having car insurance and gas. Of course, my dad saw none of these benefits, so I saw his point.

   I didn’t see any cars for sale that would match the Chevy Nova I owned. I loved that car. My father hated Ford’s and Chevy’s. He had owned a sweet 1973 Dodge Challenger that was awesome, but because of that car, he loved all Dodge cars. Even a crappy 1967 Dodge Dart he saw for sale on the corner down the block from us.

  This car was three different shades of primer. Red, grey, and some sort of yellow-tan that may have been the original color. The side window was broken fiberglass, the insides were all torn up and smelled like whole families had died in there. The selling price was $500 and that was $490 too much. My father saw this car and pictures it restored and beautiful. At least I think so, because I don’t know how he even saw that. I took one look at this car and said “No.” I was not spending my money on that car.

  He said he’d pay for it. I insisted it would never pass inspection. He got assurance that it would pass inspection, which was easy because it was an auto shop that was selling it. I told him to do what he wanted, because I wanted no part of it. He bought it. It sat in the driveway for a few days until my father asked when I was going to register it. I told him I would do no such thing. He said he would register it, but once he did I would have to start using it instead of his car. I didn’t like that at all, but what choice did I have.

  My father went to the DMV the next morning, waited on the long line only to be told when he got to the window that this piece of junk car was over 25 years old and considered a classic. That meant he would need an affidavit for sales tax purposes stating that this car was only worth the $500 he paid and not thousands of dollars a classic car may be worth. Knowing what this car looked like made it almost cartoonish. My father was annoyed and insisted it wasn’t worth $50 dollars to no avail. The lady at the window threatened to call security to escort him out if he would not leave. He ended up going back to the auto shop and had them write up an affidavit stating the car was worth $50.

  The next morning he went back to the DMV with the paperwork and the woman told him it would not suffice. Now they were telling him it needed to be appraised by a Dodge Dealership.

  “I am not going to pay $100 to get this car towed to a Dodge Dealership to get it appraised for $50.”

  Again she repeated that the car was over 25 years old and considered a classic. My father then said “ You are over a hundred years old and if you were appraised, you’d be appraised for the same amount as the car, 5 dollars! Now come up with another plan before I jump over the counter, destroy all of your computers and kill you all before security could reach me.” She said she would accept pictures. That afternoon, I took a whole roll of film worth of pictures of this crappy car from every angle.

  The next day the car was registered. That evening, I drove the car, picked up Dena and went to a friend’s apartment who was having people over for a party. Shortly after we got there, I took Rich with me and went to 7-11 on a snack run. Before we got there the car was smoking anf shooting antifreeze out of the front of the engine. The car had been registered less than 6 hours and the water pump had blown.  I got the car home and it sat in the driveway for months until my dad finally had it towed away.