RIP Christine AKA "Zombaby"


1991-2010

The other day dad and I said goodbye to the evilest car that ever lived. We named her Christine for her odd behavior (I love Stephen King) but I quickly nicknamed her "Zombaby" for her ability to come back from the dead, over and over again.

First things first, this is the key I used to start the car.



As you can see, it hasn't any teeth. Somehow or another, it started the car. I'll never understand it, but I'm grateful for being able to start it in the dead of winter, take the keys out, and run back inside (not that anyone would ever want to steal this piece of shit) keys and all, while it warmed up (with its non-factory heater that could only be felt on the dashboard) for my not-..freezing-..my-ass-off pleasure.

Behold, the ass of the car:



The key was also able to successfully open the trunk and all four doors. Surprisingly, I never used the trunk for anything. Dad gutted it out, because I had suspicions that there might be something dead in there. (And whatever was in there was probably rotted to hell.) On a sidenote, the trunk always had to be opened from the outside, because the contraption to open it from the inside was busted (so badly, in fact, that I don't know if it was a pedal, or a lever, or a handle, or what).

The muffler had to be replaced a few times. Before we junked it, dad said it was getting bad again (it was a really loud car regardless). I think the little plastic "Plymouth" thing was missing from the ass of the vehicle, too.

And here's the passenger side:



The backseat door was a bitch to open, but sometimes it would fling open while I was driving, for no apparent reason. Eventually I learned not to keep things in the backseat because of this. One of the hubs was missing, and those tires never really stayed inflated. My fiance's mum was checking the pressure on them once (just last summer actually) and she was mortified to find that they were incredibly low.

She also said that if I was her daughter, she "would never, ever let you drive that thing EVER!"

She'll be pleased to know that the old bat is in the junkyard now.

I can't remember if it's visible but there's a scrape on the front of the car on the passenger side, from when this bitch in a minivan (by the way, I hate minivans) swiped me in a parking lot.

The gas cap was starting to get really rough to screw off, and it was even starting to strip a little. What pisses me off is that I could have siphoned almost 15 dollars worth of gas out of the thing.

And here's the front:



On the lower right corner you can see that I've zoomed in to that spot on the roof that was eternally peeling off, from dad's stint as a pizza delivery guy wayyyy back in the day.

There's a cord hanging out of it, that I drove around with for a while because I had no idea it was there. After she died of flooding of gauges I know nothing about, dad was convinced that it needed to be plugged in when it was in the garage.

I used to have an air freshener in the shape of a peace sign. When I bought it, it was summertime. I left it in the car with the windows up, hoping the car would smell a little better. Well, it did! . . . For a couple days. The following week I bought a mini bottle of Febreze, sprayed the car down, left the windows up. Let sit while I was at work. Well, the car smelled pretty good, I guess. . . .For a day or so.

It was just a really smelly car. That, and the fact that it didn't have air conditioning, were the two main reasons I always drove around with the windows down.

Here we take a look at the driver's side:



The mirror on that side seemed to be really unstable. I'd go over a bump, or turn sharply (or as sharply as I could without power steering) and it would end up facing a different direction. One day, early in the spring of last year, I was having to adjust it on a double-laned main road of the city. I ended up clipping the median, thus starting the slow decay of the material around the hub on the front wheel. Eventually dad had to take the cap off, and eventually I had to tell him what happened. He just kind of laughed it off. My dad's cool.

The back door on that side ALSO did that random opening thing, but was less difficult to open (by just a hair).

On the inside driver's side, there was a hole in the floor because the bottom of the car was so rusted out that shit just started to die. I once just barely dodged a piece of debris from something laying on the road, but it somehow got caught under there. For months I kept hearing a rattling noise. I have no idea where it came from.

A few more fun facts about Christine the Zombie Car:

The following components/..pieces/gadgets have been replaced more than once:

Solenoid (whatever the hell that is.)
Fuel pump.
Power steering hose.
Muffler.
Starter/..ignition thing.
Front window on the driver's side (it broke mysteriously one winter).

The car also had a radio made for a Chrysler model. And that was all it was, just a radio.

The rearview mirror had been replaced once or twice because it kept falling off.

At the time we junked it, the headlight on the driver's side had died.

Before the heater was replaced, the car used to do this thing where a fuse would short out occasionally, thus killing the blinkers, windshield wipers, and radio simultaneously... I had to drive home in a torrential downfall once when it decided to pull that shit. The mechanic didn't touch it when he was doing the heater thing. It just simply stopped doing it.

The brakes were incredibly loud. As was the dying motor. In short, I could hear my vehicle running from inside the house. My fiance always knew when I was coming over, five minutes before I arrived.

The steering wheel was so used that it didn't even have grip anymore. It was totally smooth. Sometimes I actually lost my grip on it, when my hands were cold. The traction was just as bad on the tires; it made winter driving a living hell.

The week leading up to junking the vehicle, it was telling me to check the engine. I knew damned well there wasn't anything wrong with it. It just had an oil change recently. My dad said it was probably just an electrical thing (I guess it had done it before, just because the car had mild electrical issues that would trigger things). The only thing I could think of that might be a little funny with the engine was how sometimes it would get excited when I was at a dead stop, and pull the vehicle forward. That's pretty scary in the winter, with no traction.

On Friday (not this one, but the one before) I was picking my sister up from school, and on my way I had to wait for a train (CP Rail comes through several times a day). All of a sudden the radio (which I always fixed with an FM transmitter hooked to my mp3 player because commercial radio up here sucks) started to slowly die. I changed the batteries in my transmitter, thinking that was the problem. No dice.

I noticed that my battery power, when usually at a 16, was just barely past an 8. All I could think was, "don't freaking die here, damn it!" because I was just a few blocks away. It then occurred to me that I'd slept most of the week and had to see my schedule for the next work week. After picking up my sister, I drove to my workplace for a moment.

I left the vehicle running, because it was starting to labour and I didn't think it was going to start up again if I'd left it.

We were inside for maybe ten minutes. Once we came out, the car was smoking, inside and out. The heat gauge was at H (which basically means, the car is overheating, badly). We had to roll the windows down (hell no, they weren't automatic) and I told her as a word of caution, that maybe she doesn't need to bother with her seat belt (I thought we were going to burst into flames as it was, seriously).

Nonetheless that was the quietest I'd ever heard the engine.

Surprisingly the old bat made it home, and sat there until this Tuesday (I think?).

The morning we junked it, dad told me not to let it run or anything. Don't turn anything on in the car; don't use the heat or anything. None of that. I was certain it was going to seize up before I could even get out of the driveway, but it actually made the 5 miles to the junkyard.

Before I could even get out of the driveway, it was smoking. I had to roll the window down, and froze my ass off the whole time. (It was probably around 20 degrees below zero that day.)

We arrived, and I took some pictures.

We went inside, and (lo and behold, mewww!) there was a kitty!

A very nice kitty that grabbed hold of my hand and gave it kisses, in fact.



It was a total babe. <3

Dad signed the vehicle over to the woman at the office, and they gave him 100$.

It was unsettling for him, just knowing that he's probably put 5k into the damned thing just for repairs, but oh well.

It was a good, but very evil vehicle.

I think it was nature's way of telling me to get off my ass and go outside more often, though.