Oh No, Not The Spam!
When I was a teenager I had the coolest best friend.
We’ve since drifted apart, but she was seriously one of the neatest people I’ve ever met, and I’m the person I am today because of our friendship.
I drove this Ford Bronco II that was adorable, but not exactly the greatest car on the planet or anything.
I had to add oil like twice a week, it would overheat in the dead of summer and we’d have to drive around with the heater on… and let’s not even talk about the weird smell that came with that.
At one point we were out being all teenagery- and we decided to stop at Kmart but we didn’t really have anything we needed to buy.
So, we picked up a can of SPAM.
Look, neither of us was about to eat it or anything, and this was before SPAM = Viagra emails–we just thought the word was funny and we’d never actually seen the stuff.
But, we wimped out, and neither of us could open it. So we just put it up on the dashboard of my car. (In Texas, in 108 degree summer heat.)
I know what you’re thinking here. You’re thinking you know where this story is going, right?
The spam explodes and covers my car in a spray of Hormel’s pre-cooked finest.
Right?
Wrong.
That can never even so much as bulged. I kept it in my car for three years, and every time it slid across the dahsboard, everyone in my car yelled out in their most dramatic voice, “Oh no, Not the Spaaaaam!”
We always thought that can would come open, but it never did.
I wonder if my mom kept it. I think it’s probably in a plastic tub somewhere in their store room. Man, she’s going to kill me if it gets all over everything…
My BFF from HS really WAS the bomb. She was a year older, she had a brand new TEAL(!) Camaro convertible.
Yeah, we were BA.
‘Cept I think I was the ‘non-threatening not as attractive best friend side kick.’
Yeah, I might need to rethink that friendship.
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ohhh is it wrong that I wish I had a teal camaro?
My best friend then is still my best friend. I gave her, plus 2 other friends, a ride to school every day in my stylin’ 88 Isuzu Impulse– the window was duct taped to the door so it would stay up, the brakes were sketchy and it wouldn’t shift to third if the AC was on. But the main thing we remember is playing “find a song that the BFF doesn’t know.” Because although I still love her dearly, singing is not her strong suit.
Also, I used to have a SPAM shirt. 🙂
@Kate, HAHA! I love it, also… I totally want a SPAM shirt…
To The Internet!
My first car was an 85 (? I think) grey Chevy Celebrity. That thing was a BEAST.
The a/c didn’t work, the cassette player didn’t work. The gear shift was on the floor…which made a convenient spot for leaking exhaust to come through. YIKES!
It ran through a quart of oil like every other day and did I mention that you could not open the driver’s door from the inside?
This didn’t present much of a problem until the automatic window stopped working. Then, in order to get out of my car, I had to lower the rear driver side window and reach my arm around through that window and open my door from the outside.
I walked around for over a year with a permanent bruise on the inside of my left arm, just below the elbow, where my arm would wrap around the window frame.
Damn I miss that beast.
.-= Rhonda´s last blog ..My Laptop, Myself.. =-.
@Rhonda, HAHA When I think back on the cars our parents gave us, I wonder what the heck they were THINKING letting us drive around in those things!
@Jamie, No kidding!! At the time I was just happy to have a set of wheels but as an adult looking back…I was driving a DEATH TRAP!
.-= Rhonda´s last blog ..My Laptop, Myself.. =-.
My first car was a tank. A 73 cranberry Cutlass that my parents brought my brother home from the hospital in.
That car was made of metal and we’d hatch bets on it going against a train and emerging unscathed.
The passenger side door took on water when it rained and the A/C only worked when I hit the brakes. Did I mention it was only built for AM radio?
The meat of the story is this, my friends wouldn’t even call it a car, it was always, “The Machine”.
.-= Ellise´s last blog ..Like a clean slate… =-.
@Ellise, HAHA I LOVE It. My car back then had a name too, we called it Buckie. Why don’t I name my cars anymore?
My parents gave me a 91 Ford Ranger. I loved that truck. It had a weird seating arrangement where the two in the back would face each other. 4 people had always been a bit to much for comfort.
My BFF sat in the back and as she was trying to get out she stepped on her skirt accidentally mooning everyone.
A new rule was born, no one in the back with skirts.
.-= Jeannie´s last blog ..Science Fiction makes people think =-.
@Jeannie, OHMIGOSH! I rode in the back of these with this kind of seating arrangement one time for like four hours down to the coast. I was seventeen, and I’d had two wine coolers. I threw up ALL OVER the back window. It was awesome–in that it wasn’t awesome AT ALL.
@Jamie, yes that happened too. Thus rule number two, no drinking for the people in the back. ick. Ours happened when coming down from Lake Tahoe. Six hour drive with the smell of vomit. eew!
.-= Jeannie´s last blog ..Science Fiction makes people think =-.
@Jeannie, I think it was the combo of NOT facing the road and pink fruity drinks. Ugh, I got a little sick just thinking about it.
I have no real story to tell but thinking about that can of spam in the heat (and how much I abhore spam in general) just gave me the dry heaves! 😉
.-= write-brained´s last blog ..Chirp…Tweet =-.
@write-brained, I gagged like five times just looking for pictures of spam for this blog post, and then I gagged again when I was jazzing it up. Seriously, I feel ya.
Yeah, I, um, had this awesome butterscotch colored Ford Fairmont that was put into the world the year before I was born…I bought it for $1,000 and after I drove it for three years, I sold it for $1,000–it was like that. So, right, my friend Tiffany (the yin to my hay-this-is-so-awesome!) and I were driving around with a cigar (yeah) in the glovebox that we would try to get other people who rode with us to smoke…because we were too chicken! It was the funniest…that and the eight-tracks…that was hilarious, too…and the constant Dr. Pepper war…oh, good times. Good times.
.-= Chantal Kirkland´s last blog ..Dissecting a Happy-Ending-Aphobe =-.
@Chantal Kirkland, you had 8-tracks? Where the hell did you even find them?!?!?
@Jamie, Half-Price Books–that’s all I’m saying.
.-= Chantal Kirkland´s last blog ..Dissecting a Happy-Ending-Aphobe =-.
@Chantal Kirkland, oh for realsies? I’ve never actually heard an 8-track