cars and Connecticut

Me: Did I see an exhaust pipe in the garbage?
Dad: Yeah, that was from the blue Chevy – wait, no, maybe green.
Brother: No, Dad, the green Chevy was last weekend

A trip back home always yields a memorable exchange or two, usually over the dinner table. This was featured last night when I took everyone out for my mother’s birthday. I made an impromptu trip back to CT in honor of her birthday, which in the spirit of discretion I will merely describe as ‘a big one’. We’ve never been big on birthdays in my family (case in point: For my 25th birthday my parents got me…an Entertainment Book), but I didn’t have anything on my calendar so Sunday afternoon I hopped in the car.

Speaking of cars, my parents don’t drink coffee.

That last sentence will make sense in a moment. Because my parents don’t have a coffee maker, I “have” to go to Dunkin’ every morning while I am here. The closest Dunkins (yes, there are more than one that can be considered close – this is New England after all) are both in Rockville, which has, shall we say, a unique sensibility.

So yesterday morning I rolled out of bed chatted with the brother for a bit, and got in the Jeep for a trip down the road. When I pulled into the parking lot I saw a rusted out ‘91 Camaro with its hood up. Selfishly I thought to myself “I really don’t want to get involved”.

And yet… as I was opening the door a woman came over to me and asked if I had jumper cables. I opened the back of the car and pulled out the Penzoil Box, which rather than holding oil holds all of my supplies. I found myself hoping that for some reason they wouldn’t be in there so that I wouldn’t have to hang around, but I knew better. I’m a Felice, after all, and since the year we came downstairs Christmas morning to jumper cables all lined up around the tree, none of us has gone very far without them.

The woman then pulled her car around to help her friend, as they both commented that neither of them knew how to use the cables. As I brought them over a man approached, and I just handed them over and went in to get my breakfast. I have learned that when there is a guy around who wants to work on a car, I should just get out of the way and let him. They get really bothered by chick gear heads.

They were still working on it when I came back out. The jump-er started making small talk, while I admired the fact that her bra was entirely visible out the back of her lime green tank top, and that she had immortalized someone named “Scott” on her lower-back tattoo (or “Tramp Stamp” as certain people like to say). She liked my sandals because they were purple, she liked my dress, she liked my car. Meanwhile, the car still isn’t taking a charge. The guy is now under the car and is asking the driver for some tool, which she doesn’t have, but she pulls out a metal pipe that he somehow manages to put to use. I ask what he needs (because I probably have it in the back of the car), but he doesn’t respond. The woman in green says to me “I think it’s so funny when girls have tools in their cars”.

How funny would it have been if I hadn’t had the jumper cables when she asked for them?

Anyway, the car never took the charge, they gave me back my cables, and we all parted pleasantly. Later in the day I went on a run through some of the nearby small towns, enjoying the smells of tobacco drying in barns and of manure at the local farms.

I head back to the city in a few hours.