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Living with bad "car-ma"I don't know what I did in a previous life, but I have the lousiest "car-ma" in this one. "Car-ma" as defined in the unofficial "Latzke Dictionary" is that belief that what you may have done to vehicles in your past life will determine the actions and consequences of your future lives. Bad car-ma can also explain the choices of farms and ranch families when it comes to the youngest child's "reliable mode of transportation." Those of you youngsters out there driving hand-me-down farm vehicles may understand this better than most. More likely than not your school car was your father's pasture vehicle in its previous life and has tattoo ink stains on the dashboard. Or, your older sibling used it as a homemade "General Lee" and now its suspension is shot. You may even be right now wondering about that unidentifiable funky smell in the backseat and the rusty machine part in the trunk that your father says he will get around to removing sometime before your senior prom. I feel your pain. My first car, a 1983 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer, was a prime example of bad car-ma. It was dented and rusty and smelled like a pen rider's boot, but it traveled a 40-mile round trip to school and back for four years. It had no gas gauge or air conditioner, only a foggy memory of its four-wheel-drive, and a hole in the side of the gas tank as big as a grapefruit. It didn't have a working radio, but it did come with its own family of packrats. That Blazer leaked oil like a tanker run aground. But, it was the Transportation Terminator--nothing I could do was going to harm that car anymore than it already was. However, there came a day when the Blazer began dying on the side of the road more often than usual. That was when I finally traded "up" to a 1990 Plymouth Acclaim. "Bessie The Wonder Car" was a find on the used car lot in Junction City, Kan. Fortunately, my parents didn't have to pay extra for the duct tape accessories. It had a duct-taped side mirror, duct-taped plastic over the rear passenger window, and a duct-taped fender. A shiny new roll even came standard. Picture a little car with a manual five-speed transmission and a driver's side window that would shimmy down suddenly while you're on the road. I had to attempt Olympian feats of acrobatics to steer with my knees, shift gears and shimmy the window back into place on more than one occasion. But, I kept reminding myself that the Acclaim was paid for, the insurance was practically free, and I was getting so much more exercise with my mid-drive acrobatics. I thought I could put my bad car-ma behind me by buying a car without the influence of my family.. My 1999 Ford Explorer Sport is nothing fancy, but it's the first thing that I bought and paid for without help from my family, and isn't a hand-me-down. That should be enough to halt the bad car-ma cycle, I thought. Reliable transportation? Yes. Accident and natural disaster-proof? No. The first Spring rainstorm brought with it hail, and every year since it's had hail damage. It's been paid off for two years or so, and I have door dings, scratches and paint chips from shopping carts and inconsiderate parkers to prove it. There's a crack in my windshield from a road rock, and my seals around my passenger door leak rain. I have seen the inside of our local body shop so many times I swear the boys behind the counter actually get giddy to see me and my checkbook. I think I even once caught the owner mid-jig as I walked in the door. There's got to be a way to rid this bad car-ma. Maybe if I sacrifice a couple of windshield wipers on a car bumper altar, pray to the patron saint of motor transportation, and build up my vehicular good deeds in this life the next one will be much better. Whatever I do, I've got to figure it out quickly because it's almost time for a new car, and I don't think I can survive one more entry into the Big Book of Car-ma. Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com. 9/15/08 Date: 9/9/08
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