Yesterday, I took my van, The Beast, through the car wash. The car wash code that printed out on my receipt was 16669. The number of The Beast. I decided it was time to talk a little about The Beast.
When I was in high school, I drove my parents car. Well, after a while, they got upset about all the fast food wrappers and junk laying around, so they told me that I had the rest of the week to find a car for myself. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have a way to get to work.
My buddy, Smitty, drove a 1993 Toyota Previa with about 160,000 miles. The sliding door on the side had duct tape for a window. I offered him $500 cash, and he tossed me the keys.
A couple years later, I was living in an apartment in West Des Moines. One day, I realized that somebody had shattered my back window. I don’t know who, why, or how, but it really upset me. It upset me so much that I moved out of the city.
I moved up to Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp.
Strange thing happened when I got there. I was told that somebody had donated a 1992 Toyota Previa that had a busted engine and was going to be hauled off to the junk yard within a week. It was great. I had all the same parts that mine did.
I was trying to figure out a way to get the back window off of the camp van and onto The Beast. I could find no way to do this, so instead, I took the whole back door. It worked so well, that I did the same for the sliding door. No more duct tape window. You wouldn’t even notice the two recently acquired doors were it not for the fact that The Beast was originally silver and the new accessories were red.
I did feel a image: The Beast now has racked up over 220,000 miles. My mechanic says that, as long as I keep changing the oil, he sees no reason it won’t pass 300,000.
Some other random facts about The Beast:
- The Beast has been as far north as Canada, as far east as Chicago, as far south as Kansas City, and as far west as Omaha
- Has a small indent in the side where my “buddy” Jake shot it with a BB gun
- Has no middle seat (I threw it away)
- Has two (not one, but two) horns, so that I can make anybody in front of me soil their pants
- If it’s too hot outside, it takes several tries to start the engine
- Can do 0 to 60 in 15 seconds (no, that’s not good)