hooray for family road trips!

so my sister's car had to go have stuffs done at the volvo dealership (she likes to drive it into things and my dad has this masochistic impulse to overmaintain her car so it's anybody's guess as to what it may have "needed" to have done. bill (the family mechanic) has, at least once, refused to "get interested" in something that my dad thought should be done. the whole dance is fascinating...) and while it was there, the geniuses managed to drain the battery, which erased the car's memory. ok, fine.

except that her car needs to get inspected this month (another thing that is inexplicably my dad's problem, not my sister's...) and it can't pass inspection without some memory for the emissions part.

so. in order to remedy this situation, the three of us (my sister is, conveniently, currently staggering around europe) are going to drive down to providence (my favorite city! (if by "favorite" i mean the place where, of all the places i've lived, one is most likely to get mugged)) for father's day dinner.

now, i'm sure you've seen volvo s40s from the outside but i don't know if you've had occasion to be in one. while the honda element, for example, is far more spacious inside than it looks to be from the outside, the s40 is the exact opposite. it looks reasonable from the outside but once you're in it, you marvel at how 3 adults can fit into a 16 oz. tin can (with the garbonzo beans removed, obviously). when i drive it, my forehead almost grazes the part where the windshield meets the roof and the part where the driver's window meets the roof is not more than 2" away from my head. i have to put my head in the space between the two front seats if i need to put the visor down. it is amazingly cramped. and that's just the front seat, to say nothing of the back seat...

adding to the joy of the trip will be my father's infinite knowledge and wisdom about how you can't possibly maintain a constant speed by holding your foot just so on the gas pedal. no, the correct way to maintain speed is to push down sharply on the accelerator then quickly remove your foot.

over

and

over

and

over.

did i mention that her car has a turbocharger?

it will be interesting to see which happens first: me throwing up or me grabbing the mardi gras beads off her rearview mirror to strangle myself to death...


post script: neither, though it was quite unfortunate that i forgot that wbz 1030 travels with my father, not just his car. oh ipod, why did i leave you at home???