VERY, VERY RED - a trip report/confessional

[Monique]

So, a couple of weeks ago I bought a little commuter car for my occasional trips into the city from the mountains where I live, so I won’t have to drive my 4WD rig when the weather is good and I don’t need cargo space.

About this “little commuter car.” It’s a convertible. Well, a convertible roadster, to be more exact. A European convertible roadster. Okay, it’s a BMW. Used, 65,000 miles, but there’s no getting around the fact it’s a Z3, with barely enough trunk space to hold all my baggage about the image it portrays. It’s what the folks in the old country call a sports car. Oh, and it’s red.

When I found the car I tried hard to will it into being gray, or silver. It wouldn’t turn, but the price was such a great deal I decided I’d live with red. Not just red, but Hey You Look At Me Red. I confess I made quite a few disparaging comments about the color before realizing the best course of action was not only to put up with, but to embrace, its undeniable redness.

Anyway, last Tuesday I put the top down on the little red car and drove 60 miles into town, to the hair studio where a woman we’ll call J-Bob was meant to solve the dual problems posed by my rapidly-sprouting and suddenly-graying hair. (I’ve tried hard to will the rogue hairs into not being gray or silver but they won’t revert to blond, nor even turn red.)

J-Bob and I have a nice, pleasant chat about the new ride while she puts so much bleach-slathered foil in my hair it starts picking up satellite TV. She sticks me under the dryer and leaves the room. I “leaf” too, through a magazine, wondering with vague anxiety whether I’ll have time to memorize all 100 Beauty Tips before J-Bob returns.

Which she does, momentarily, smelling of smoke and looking pale.

J-Bob: “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I went outside to look at your car and it wasn’t there.”
Monique: “It’s not there?!” (I flash first on J-Bob’s meth-head next-door neighbors and then on the halfway house across the street, whose inhabitants presumably have just been released from the all-the-way house, thinking “Wow, stealing it didn’t take long!”)
J-Bob: “Well it wasn’t there, so I looked around, and then I saw it way down the street. I don’t want to tell you this but someone drove it through a fence and it’s sitting on the fence pieces in the neighbor’s yard, crashed against a tree. We need to call the police.”

Keep in mind I have strong chemicals on my head and Elle magazine in my lap. I can hear Jerry Springer buzzing in my foil. Suddenly I imagine appearing on his show, bald with a red scalp, shouting at J-Bob’s neighbors. I suggest we wait the five minutes for my hair to finish processing, get a good look at the car and THEN call the cops. It’s a plan. J-Bob goes back outside.

I sit alone under the dryer, legs crossed at the knee, hair-TV murmuring, calmly paging through the magazine. It seems this spring is all about The Fresh White Dress. Remember that footage in Fahrenheit 9/11 when Bush is told about the terrorist attacks and just sits there in the classroom, blank and blinking? Like him, I sit quietly, trying not to think about what will happen when I go outside.

Because, you see, when I do start thinking I can remember having my feet on both the brake and the clutch while I waited for the power roof to come up. I can remember thinking it was dumb to press both pedals and can remember putting the car in neutral to take my foot off the clutch. I habitually use the emergency brake but I can’t remember….

Mother always says worrying won’t change anything. I’m trapped here until my hair turns blond. I should focus on the positive. Maybe comfort myself with a little song Mom used to sing when I was a child.

Where, oh where has my little car gone?
Where, oh where could it be?

Okay, not that one. Let’s try:

My Bimmer ran over the trash bins
My Bimmer ran wild and free
My Bimmer lies over the fence now
Oh bring back my Bimmer to me
Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my Bimmer to me, to me…

Maybe singing isn’t such a good idea.

Meanwhile, a neighbor has called the police. The cop observes both doors still locked, windows intact, car in neutral, parking brake disengaged. The car, so deceptively docile when I left it, has taken apparent revenge for my remarks about its color by rolling down a slight incline, clipping some recycle bins, threading itself between a signpost and a tree, traversing an intersection, jumping a curb, mowing down a 3½-foot high wooden fence, continuing into a yard and coming to rest (ever so gently as it turns out) against another tree, two blocks away.

And it is still red. Maybe even redder than when we started. Very, very red.

J-Bob tells the cop I’m inside the studio with bleach on my hair and asks if he can wait for her to rinse it. Now, she swears he didn’t say anything more than “Yes, I’ll wait,” but I’m a realistic woman. I picture the conversation more like this:

J-Bob: “Oh Officer, could you please wait a few minutes? Because the woman who owns that car? That very, very red sports car in the tree over there? The one in neutral with the e-brake off? She’s inside my studio getting her hair bleached.”
Cop: “Well of course she is.”

By the time I take my freshly blond head outside, an assortment of criminals and addicts has gathered to watch. A pair of toothless tow-truck drivers pokes their heads under my car to make sure nothing is leaking—while sucking on lit cigarettes. We jack up the car, pull the fence beams from under it and I drive out of the yard. I feel relief: no one is hurt, not too much damage to the car.

Right about then, the fence owner arrives.

Monique: “Hi, I am so sorry about your fence. Um…you look familiar.”
Fence guy: “It’s okay, as long as you’re alright. Yeah, I ski at Crystal.”
Monique: “Oh, I wasn’t in the car. Crystal? Me too.”
Fence guy: “Don’t you live in ‘the Ranch?’”
Monique: “Yep, I do.”
Fence guy: “We have a cabin right down the trail from your place. Hey, our next-door neighbor up there said you got a new car!”

My face turns red. Very, very red.

[gincognito]

Nice.

[Viva]

That was a capital TR!

Glad the car's okay.

So, how's the hair turn out?

[bklyn]

That's priceless! Great story.

[soul_skier]

HA, blondes...

[Crinkle]

cheers, well written. Sassy car, my wife wants one, badly

[hev]

ha! well written...sorry to hear about the car.

[bigtrubs]

Hahahahahhhaa that's one of the most entertaining trip reports I've read here so far! I'm sorry to hear about your mishap Monique, but glad you're hair is alright as is your Beamer.

[lemon boy]

Way to stay calm and focused in the face of disaster!

[A-wreck]

Good story.

Happened to me once.

Not as much damage but, it still happened.

[marshalolson]

i smiled.

[XtrPickels]

hmm

it doesn't even need pictures

great writeup

[mrw]

I think we need pics of the redness and the radness of your blondeness

Speaking as your tgr online insurance appraiser, be sure to get your car put on a lift for a check underneath. Funny but I am sitting here at my desk writing the estimate for a Z4 that jumped a curb. I am up to $4000. and counting. The sub frame on this one is wasted and the impact broke both headlamp mounts.The radiator supt also needed replacing.I am attaching a photo of the Z4 taken during repair

Attachment 12244

[str8line]

Holy shit Monique, that was a great story! Very well written. Sorry your car had to be the impetus for it.

Hope it doesn't cost you too much and your car comes out of it ok. Look on the bright side though...

NOW YOU CAN PAINT THE CAR GREY OR SILVER!

[Obstruction]

Great story telling. Speaking of sub frame, as MRW did, I know they are a little weak in the e46, so it would bear a loking at after the ahh ... fencing match.

[Camilo]

My friend has a Jetta that she calls "fuck me red."

Great TR!

[Danno]

Nice story. I did something similar once. Though I wasn't getting my hair bleached. And the red car was a red truck.

We need pics of the car.

[shera]

You seriously made me laugh out loud. Great story. Funny enough to be true...

[lph]

Great writing, Monique.

I remember back to Lenas, myself and girlski and others walking to the bus and she looks at us and says, "You guys would really like Monique." Can't remember the context of that conversation, but I think she is right.

Funny story.

[girlski0912]

Monique called me on Wednesday and we are atleast 25 minutes into our conversation when she says, casually,"Oh, I totally forgot to tell you...I had a little mis-hap yesterday." I was completely amazed by how well she handled the situation because I am pretty sure that the frisbees would have started flying out of my ass within seconds of seeing my car smashed into a tree.

Then on Saturday, while in the midst of trying to not be pissed that I was being treated like I didn't matter, Monique says," so I have something that might make you laugh a little right now." I am handed the above TR and immediately starting laughing so hard I could cry. Well written is an understatement.

[Viva]

...the frisbees would have started flying out of my ass...

Now there's something you don't hear everyday.

[Mrs Roo]

Hilarious story. Shame about the car. Is it a write off or will you get it fixed up? May be you can factor in a little silver respray while you are there.

[Buster Highmen]

Diamond studded beehive poo, right there.

More songs please.

[steve]

thanks for taking the time to write this (and make it funny and entertaining..)

[Tippster]

Russian Pornstar Lipstick Red. My favorite color.