Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes!

(This is actually an old photo of Cecilia's first Television appearance.  Note the Colorado license plate was her "wardrobe".) 

Ferreting through my purse anxiously in search of my passport while stopped at a red light, I was certain that Cecilia (my car) and I would soon be pulled over for a spot-check at the border.  Did I have any fruits or vegetables in my possession?  Was there anything in my trunk I would need to declare?  And what were my intentions for visiting; business or pleasure?   

A half a car length in front of me at the same red light, my co-conspirator Dev glanced in his rear view mirror cool as a cucumber and gently brushed a few hairs behind his left ear.  Was this some sort of code?  Was he waving me off?  We hadn’t even prepared a proper ‘safe word’ on our cell phones in case of a sudden abort of the mission at hand! 

But trusting and following my friend, I took a left into an ominous parking lot and parked Cecilia in front of a tall cinderblock wall. 

“You would have panicked if you drove here all by yourself, wouldn’t you?” Dev smiled warmly through his rolled-down window as I slithered gelatinously out of my tiny Toyota. 

“Are we in Canada?” I asked in a cold sweat, my lil heart still pumping adrenaline like a bunny rabbit. 

“No dear, just a few miles down Ventura Boulevard from the Studio. See you in the morning!” he beamed, wheeling around ala James Bond in his sporty convertible and heading off to his own private hideaway.

***

“So, Cecilia sounds like she has a wad of gum stuck on her left shoe.  And she absolutely hates being turned hard left or hard right and makes this weird wobbly noise.  Plus she seems to get panicky when I drive at night in the dark.  But don’t worry about the ‘check engine’ light that’s on – she just does that when she’s cranky.  She’ll turn it off when she feels like it” I added for clarification. “After all, I had to work late last night, so of course she turned it on…  Anyway, I need to buy her two new front tires” I summarized logistically.

“Uh huh” the salesman eye-balled me warily as if he was listening to a certified lunatic.  “So what kind of car do you have?” 

“Oh, she’s a Toyota.” 

“Right. And the model?” 

“Cecilia?” 

“Celica…” he typed. 

“No, she’s a CE.”

“There’s no such thing as a Celica CE…  You know what, just show me your car…” he huffed pointing me to the door.  “Why did you park so far away?” he huffed again as we walked the length of the lot.

“I told you that she doesn’t like to make hard turns, and there was a delivery truck idling dead center in the middle that I had to go around” I explained. (Duh!)

“That’s a Tercel.”

“I know.”

“You said it was a Celica.”

“No, I said her name is Cecilia.”

“You said it was a Celica CE.”

“Nooo, I said she’s a Toyota named Cecilia.”

“But you…  But I asked…  Just.  Give.  Me.  The.  Keys.”

“Geez, fine, whatever” I sighed.

Pacing back and forth like an expectant father outside a maternity ward in front of the “NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONEL BEYOND THIS POINT” sign, I maintained eye contact with Cecilia for comfort, as a portly mechanic scooted her driver’s seat all the way back, loaded himself inside with great difficulty and eventually angled her into a chamber of the garage.  “I’m right here!” I whispered reassuringly as another grease monkey gave me the stink-eye for hovering too close to the door. 

But hoisting her high in the air until her wheels were dangling six feet off the ground, her headlights peering over the tops of the SUVs surrounding her and essentially waving to the peasants below, I swear I thought I saw Cecilia smile.

“Penny?” my portly mechanic called out as I had finally begun to relax in the waiting area a half hour later with a crossword puzzle.  “Your car desperately needs an alignment.  Would you please follow me?”  And leading me out to the work area where my Toyota was still the tall reigning Princess lording over the Almighty Kingdom of the Valley Garage, he showed me some green graphics on the computer screen.  “Both the camber and the caster readings are within the specified ranges, but this here is very bad” he pointed sympathetically to a scary red chart. 

“Sooo, what does that mean?” I asked naively. 

“See how these markers are so close together?  Well, basically, your car is pigeon-toed.” 

A couple hundred dollars later, I retrieved my keys and floundered in the vast roominess of my readjusted driver’s seat unable to reach the pedals.  “The mechanic seemed quite nice” I shared with Cecilia as I flopped around awkwardly, eventually scooting my way closer to the dashboard.  “Are you OK?  How are you feeling?  Shall we get you home?”  I continued maternally to my automobile, scrounging around for the lever that would return my posture to the usual upright granny-type driving position wherein my  white knuckles could be firmly locked at ‘ten’ and ‘two’ on the steering wheel. “We’re just a few miles down the street from the canyon to get us over the hill” I added, easing our way onto the boulevard.

But hands off the steering column for a solid city block, Cecilia motored steady and true in a straight line. Her ‘check engine’ light wasn’t glaring anymore and by all accounts she owned the road.

“Our show got picked up for 15 more episodes!” I shared gleefully with my parents on the phone tonight. “So I can afford the bill, and Cecilia drives like a dream!” I squealed (neither confirming nor denying having spun her around in a couple of 180s on my street).  

“That’s great!” my Mom and Dad cheered. “But we’re still going to put $200 into your bank account to pay for the tires.”

Embracing the parental instinct however it may choose to manifest itself,

~P