The Manimal

So. I bought a car on eBay once. I bought a 1990 Acura Integra sight-unseen from a guy in Ohio. I figured it must be reliable because he was willing to drive it from Cincinnati to Provo, so I bought it from him. He drove it to me, and it made it just fine. But it wasn't exactly what I expected it to be: the dash lights flickered, and the front blinkers were blue, and the driver seat didn't have a lapbelt, and the fan didn't blow, and the air conditioning unit and power steering pump had been removed to make room for the after-market engine, and the muffler was sitting in the back seat, and the racing clutch made it kinda jumpy, and it grinded every time I shifted into third gear, and the horn didn't work, and the custom wheels didn't fit quite right, and the catalytic converter was busted, and one of the motor mounts was broken, and the tires were showing wires, and one of the back doors wouldn't open from the inside, and the key wouldn't unlock any of the doors, and the trunk didn't latch.

Anyway, it was a great car, and I loved it. It was so much fun to drive! Sure, it had some quirks (the window motors were wearing out, one blinker blinked twice as fast as the other, the front speakers were blown, the radio antanna was missing), but it got me around just fine--and a lot quicker than my GEO ever did! Its name, which was on a sticker attached to the very front of the hood, said it all: Manimal.

I went on a blind date on 22 November 2008, and I assured my buddy who set me up on the date that the Manimal was up to the task. In fact, after I picked up my date (Chilly--you should visit her sometime), I kept her amused by pointing out various oddities about my car (the fact that I have to avoid parking lot speedbumps because it's been lowered, the toggle switch my dad jury rigged underneath the glove compartment to turn the heater on and off, the fact that I have to disconnect the battery when I park for more than a few hours because something drains it dry otherwise). She was very amused indeed when, at the conclusion of the date, we came out to the Manimal and it wouldn't start. After we got a jump (which was a bit of an ordeal because I somehow forgot to bring my cables), she was amused by the fact that my automatic seatbelt didn't come on but rather contented itself to beep at me angrily (which is what it always did when I made the mistake of starting the car with the driver door open--a mistake I made repeatedly but failed to learn from). I appreciated her good humor because I was too much annoyed to duly recognize the hilarity of the situation.

That date took place the weekend before Thanksgiving, and I told the story to my various friends, so who could blame any of them for looking at me incredulously when I decided to drive home (~600 miles) for the holiday? But I did my best to assuage their fears by telling them that it was the battery that had died on the date; so long as I was moving down the road, I didn't have anything to worry about: my alternator works fine; it's just the battery that has the tendency to die from time to time. Suddenly. Without warning.

One friend (Betsy) told me to be sure to stock up on water before leaving so when I broke down in Death Valley, I wouldn't die of thirst. I laughed and told her not to worry: the Manimal would be fine. Besides, I don't even go anywhere near Death Valley on my trip, just the lesser-known parts of the California desert. (Remember this random, anecdotal paragraph; it's important later.)

I had made it almost 400 miles into my 600-mile journey and was nearing the border of my home state when the Manimal started to make a horrible noise. I know nothing about cars, so the best I could figure was that a helicopter somehow got stuck under the chassis and was trying hard to fly away. That's just what it sounded like to me. I pulled over in the nowhere town of Jean, Nevada and called my mechanically inclined brother to get some advice. After having me check a few things, he told me that I was probably okay to head on down the road: either the Manimal would make it or it wouldn't, but he was relatively sure that I didn't have to worry about anything exploding into flames or anything, so I got back on the freeway and continued on.

I made it past the California border nearly deaf but otherwise fine. Before the noise had started, I was realizing that I was beginning to feel drowsy; I figured it was awful kind of the Manimal to help keep me awake like that. What a good car. Just inside of California, we hit some road work (I say we--did I mention I had my Gramma with me?). Southbound traffic was divided into two directions: two lanes to the right for trucks and other slow movers and an express lane to the left for everyone else.

I took the express.

The express lane cut across and connected with the northbound lanes. We passed a NO SHOULDER sign, and I gripped the wheel as a cement barrier went up on our left and a metal guardrail appeared on our right. This would be a bad place to break down. I slowed to about 65mph (55 was the posted limit, but no one was working, and this was the express lane--I think the people behind me wanted to go faster, but I was happy to slow down from the 90mph I had been maintianing up to that point. What can I say? The Manimal liked to move!).

Suddenly, the helicopter landed: the horrible noise we had been enduring was replaced with a terrible grinding; 65 dropped to 35 almost instantaneously, which I maintained for as long as I could. Taking my cue from the guy behind me, I turned on my flashers. And then we stopped.

I got out to inspect the damage.

"Hey, man! You lost your wheel back there!"

"I figured!" I said.

I hopped on my phone and called home to request a ride and then called 911 to report myself for blocking southbound I-15. A long line of cars is stopped behind me with no way to get around me. By the time I got off the phone, a handful of large, helpful-looking men was standing around me. With their help, we shoved the Manimal up against the cement barrier. Someone found a construction cone and put it behind my wrecked vehicle. Gramma had a little single-cell flashlight, which I used to direct traffic around us. I watched in amazement as even a big o' F-350 managed to sqeeze past. Good thing I thought to collapse my rearview mirror: he'da never made it otherwise!

So here I am, sitting on a construction cone, directing traffic with a tiny flashlight, yakking with my buddy Ben over the phone, waiting for highway patrol to show up and tell me what to do or my family to come and take me away. I met some of the friendliest rubberneckers in the world: since circumstance dictated passersby move more slowly than a speedometer can register, people were rolling down windows and offering rides and condolences. Of course, I couldn't just leave the car there, so I turned them all down--even my former Institute Director who was going back to Bakersfield from Logan for Thanksgiving. Small world.

Highway patrol was quick to show. The officer hopped out of his patrol car and told me I needed to move my car out of the way.

Brilliant.

I told him that it wouldn't roll--it was a front-wheel drive that was missing a front wheel--but he told me to get in and try anyway.

"If it won't go," he said, "I'll push you."

Who did he think he was, Superman? It took five of us pushing just to get it against the wall! And now he, a lone man, is going to push me all the way up this mile-long hill? Good luck.

But I obediently climbed in through the driverside window, started it up, threw it on first, and let loose. I tried gently at first--maybe I could get a little grip with my one tire if I started slow--no good. So I jammed on the gas, redlined, shifted to second, redlined--no good. I looked in the rearview and saw him pulling up behind me--oh, so that's what he meant by 'push'; I get it now. Hope that patrol car has some guts: the Manimal is no lightweight.

Up we went--holy cow that car was tough! I swear we were cruising and 35 and 40, uphill, missing a wheel. He tried to communicate with me over his PA system, but it was mostly useless. You'd be surprised how much noise an Integra makes when it's missing a wheel. You might be thinking, "No, I'm sure it's pretty loud," but I'm telling you, you'd still be surprised. I did catch an occasional snippet of what he was saying; "PUT THE CAR IN NEUTRAL!" came through loud and clear. We got to the top of the hill and found a shoulder. He said something I couldn't understand, so I pulled over, which seemed to satisfy him. But then we kept going. Where was he taking us? He said something else I couldn't understand. I looked back and noticed we were leaving him behind.

"STOP!" he shouted through the PA, so we did.

How the crap were we coasting without a wheel? I'm tellin' you, the Mannimal likes to move!

We waited another hour for the tow truck to show up. When it finally got there, the driver walked straight to the patrol car and had some words with the officer. I wasn't in on the conversation, but I caught something like, "...SAID IT WASN'T YOU SO I KEPT GOING AND IT WAS YOU BUT YOU SAID IT WASN'T YOU SO I GOT ALL THE WAY TO...."

Anyway, we loaded the Manimal onto the flatbed and went to Baker, California, the closest semblence of civilization to the wreck site, where we met up with a brother and sister of mine. As we transferred all of Gramma's stuff from the Manimal to my brother's 4Runner (she winters with my parents in Tehachapi, so she had a lot of stuff), I glanced up at The World's Tallest Thermometer to see the temperature. In so doing, I noticed an emblem at the base of the thermometer, something I had never noticed the many times I'd passed by it on I-15. There, in a big red circle, were the words BAKER, CA GATEWAY TO DEATH VALLEY. I sighed and shook my head.

The next day (26 November 2008), me and my mechanically inclined brother and dad went out to Baker to try to reassemble the Manimal. As it turns out, the lug bolts that held that wheel on had all broken in half. We spent a solid hour wailing on them with a sledge hammer, but to no avail. So we left the Manimal at the yard there in Baker, and I don't suppose I'll ever see it again.

So that's the story of the Manimal, the first car I ever owned in the clear, and the last car I'll ever buy on eBay. Lesson learned.