This is dedicated to my 11th grade English teacher, who gave me a 50/50 on my English essay so I would have a chance at a B for a final grade. The fluorescent lights were flickering as Michael was finally sitting down after an 8 hour late night shift at the local Waffle House on a cool and foggy Sunday morning. He wiped the sweat from his brow realizing how much he reeked of cigarette smoke and waffle batter and realized he didn’t even have the energy to be glad he was finally going home. He called his mother for a ride for one of the last times.
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The attitude he gave off over the phone wasn’t because he didn’t appreciate his mother waking up early in the morning to come pick him up, nor was it because he had been up for the past 24 hours. It was because he couldn’t drive himself home. He had been in possession of his license for the past few months but never had the chance to use it as he lacked a car, the ultimate symbol of teenage independence. For the past 16 years of his life he had relied on his mom for everything. Well, Michael thought it was time to change that.
He had been pestering his friend, Norman, to put in a good word for him at the Rolla Waffle House. By some miracle of God he landed the job after submitting countless applications to business all around Rolla. The job wasn’t exactly what someone would call fun and Michael felt it would be quite a stretch to say it was even tolerable, but he pushed past it, knowing that it would ultimately lead to his independence in the form of a car. He didn’t have a particular car in mind, although it couldn’t be your typical beater Honda or Buick. He wanted something a little more high-profile.
An older man named Stuart, who Michael only knew through his family, had agreed to take on the task of trying to find something that would suit his needs. Stuart knew his cars and worked part-time fixing up cars and reselling them. Michael knew of his background and was confident he wouldn’t disappoint. One night after a drawn-out and sleep-inducing mass at their church Michael and his family agreed to go out to Bandana’s, a barbecue chain in Rolla. They were going to meet Stuart and his family there and eat with them.
Sometime after Michael’s 3rd Mountain Dew, Stuart passed Michael his phone and said, “Check this out. Michael took the phone from his hand and was in awe when he saw an 80’s model car that looked a cross between a Fox Body Ford Mustang and a Nissan 240z. After ogling over the 3 pictures of the car Michael leaned up and asked Stuart what it was. He replied, “It’s a 1983 Toyota Celica GT, it’s not a car that too many people have heard of. ” Michael fell in love with it even more when Stuart told him that it was only $600 and it would be up and running if he threw a couple hundred more at it. Michael had that much and more saved up and asked when he could go see it.
Stuart offered to take him to the guy’s house the next weekend. Michael was overjoyed that all the work he had put in saving up money was finally going to pay off. Fast-forward a week later, Michael woke up much earlier than normal for a typical weekend. This was because this was the day that was going to change his life, the day he was going to be free to come and go as he pleased. Stuart came by his house just before noon. It was a typical blazing hot Missouri summer day, which suited the eagerness and excitement felt by Michael quite nicely.
They drove 15 miles or so outside of town only to arrive at a nice looking house in the middle of nowhere. Their she was, sitting in the driveway. It was slightly beat up but for the most part in pretty good condition. They went up to the house and got the keys so we could start it and take it for a bit of a test drive. What really caught me off guard was the lack of the traditional PRNDL (Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, and Low) shifter for an automatic transmission and a slightly rusty chromed stick that was in its place, sporting the numbers 1-5 in different corners of the stick.
Oh god” Michael thought to himself, “I’ve never driven a stick before! ” Now, Michael knew the basic mechanics of working the clutch and shifting through gears in order to correlate to the speed you were traveling, but he had never had the chance to actually put that theory into practice. Michael told Stuart this and a rough version of his response was something like, “Well, I guess you’re going to have to learn. ” If there ever was a place that Michael was going to learn, it was here and now.
They both hopped in, slightly delayed by the fact that the driver’s door didn’t open from the outside, but that didn’t matter too much to Michael at the time. After a short verbal lesson from Stuart, Michael started the engine and sloppily maneuvered the car to the end of the driveway, stalling the car once or twice. They were situated on O Highway, the perfect place to get the hang of driving a stick, as it was relatively straight and you didn’t have to stop and go like in the city. Michael got the car onto the highway and began the ride of his life, trying to drive in a straight line and not off he side of the road while messing with the shifter.
Even though he was pretty shaky with the shifter, he loved every minute of it. Michael’s knowledge base of cars went from knowing that the wheels were made of rubber to knowing how to tear his engine apart and rebuild it with no more than a 12mm ratchet and a harmonic balancer puller. What’s important about all of this isn’t the fact that Michael bought a car. It’s that through hard work and perseverance he was able to achieve a goal without the assistance of his parents.
