Blinky

Some stories simply have to be told, and this is one of my favorites. As usual, I have changed the names of the people involved in order to protect the innocent and spare them any embarrassment.

When I was in high school, there was always a specific meeting place for weekend nights. I found that each high school had a different location for their classmates to congregate. When there was no place to go, or if a party got broken up, my classmates and I would gather at the designated location to loiter, until we found somewhere else to go, or as it many times happened, we were shooed away by the business proprietors.  At my first high school, the meeting spot was “tri-state.” At my second, it was “Meet at Sev!” that was so often yelled between open car windows (meaning one particular 711 convenience store, centered in our high school’s zoning area).

I had this friend, who we will call “Stacy” for this story. Stacy drove a grey soft-top Suzuki Samurai that had been broken into so many times it had to be duct taped to patch the holes. I believe that Stacy went through three stereos and two soft-shell car tops before she relented to the knife slits and silence and started keeping duct tape in her car, instead of a CD player, realizing that it was much more practical. Luckily, the body of the (I don’t know if you could call it a “car”) was silver, so the boxy metal frame matched perfectly with the duct taped shell. It’s as if the manufacturer planned it this way.

I can’t even begin to imagine how unsafe this vehicle was. As much as I got a kick out of riding around town in this silver box, it seemed as though Suzuki had finished building a different model of car, and with the leftover scrap metal decided, “Let’s really get our money’s worth and put together just one more car with what we have left.” And so became the Samurai.

On more than one occasion, Stacy would go to the parking lot after class, only to find her car not in the space she had parked it in earlier that day, but a couple spaces away. It took no more than five boys of mediocre strength to lift the Samurai up and set it back down ten feet from where it had been originally parked. Stacy would sometimes get annoyed. I found it hilarious.

One uneventful Saturday night, Stacy and I were out in the ‘zuki, calling everyone we knew from our Nokia cell phones, desperately trying to find a fellow student who was stupid enough to allow a bunch of teenage hoodlums to come over to their house while their parents were out of town. Unfortunately, the only lead that we uncovered that night was that people were on their way to post up at “Sev.” So off we zipped in the Silver Bullet, its tiny engine straining to hit 45mph while carrying two passengers, four rolls of duct tape, and a six-pack of Zimas.  

As we reached our all-to-familiar neighborhood 711, we could see that our friends had already started to gather in the usual parking spaces adjacent to the convenience store. The ‘zuke’s headlights made everyone squint and block their eyes as we putt-putted into a parking spot and greeted everyone through our open windows and slashed convertible topper. As Stacy killed the engine, our friend* who we will call “Johnny,” walked up to the car and in a concerned voice said, “Hey, Stace. Turn your car back on real quick.”

Thinking that we were going to be relocating parking spaces, I remained seated in the passenger’s seat while Stacy flicked her cigarette butt out the window and turned the key.

“Turn your blinker on.” Johnny instructed. She did. Johnny looked inquisitively at it.

“Now turn the other one on.” Without question, Stacy again did as she was told. Taking a look at the right front blinker, Johnny told us, “Hey, I don’t want to alarm you, but you’re really low on blinker fluid.”

Poor, poor Stacy. All that this girl ever wanted was for people to like her. She was one of those individuals who trusted people whole-heartedly, and really believed that everyone was always looking out for her best interest. Her naivety is what made her so loveable, not to mention that every time she was duped, she had a great attitude about it. So when Stacy responded to Johnny’s blasphemous warning with, “What? Are you sure?” I had no choice but to stifle my laugh and see where this would go.

Johnny then explained calmly, “Don’t worry. Take it in to Jiffy Lube tomorrow and ask for Sam. If you tell him that you know me he will totally hook you up.”

“Oh my gosh, thank you so much Johnny!” Stacy responded.

At this point, I had my head between my knees in order to hide the tears that were streaming down my face from laughter. The fact that my body was convulsing in dry heaves could not be hidden and I was convinced that this would be the tell-tale sign that something was up. Johnny however, was doing an amazing job at keeping a relatively straight face and continued on with his “girls-are-stupid-and-don’t-know-shit-about-cars” lie.   

“Don’t worry girl! You know I’ve got your back! Sam is pretty good looking too. Maybe I could set the two of you up if you like what you see.”

Stacy was also boy crazy, so while most sane people knew that Johnny was a douche bag and had never cared about anyone except himself, Stacy found this offer incredibly appealing and thought nothing suspicious of the fact that Douchey McDoucherson was all of a sudden being so nice. This is when I opened the passenger side door and practically fell onto the pavement in a fit of tears, laughter, and full body heaves. I was beginning to feel bad for Stacy and my plan was to walk around to her side of the car, stand between her and Johnny, and sweetly explain to her that blinkers are light bulbs and therefore no fluid was involved. But for the life of me I could not get a word out. Finally, one of our friends who had been gathered in the group of laughing bystanders (I don’t know how this escaped Stacy’s radar) let the cat out of the bag and told Stacy that in fact, there is no such thing as “blinker fluid.”

Thank the good lord that this naïve little girl had such a great sense of humor. I can only imagine how badly this could have gone over with some of my other friends. With a shocked look on her face, she exclaimed, “OH MY GOD! What if I had actually gone in to get it fixed?!”

(I want the reader to know that I am still cracking up as I write this blog.)

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s a foreign car...” Stacy joked, pretending to be having her encounter with “Sam,” and asking for her blinker fluid to be refilled.

When I told my mom the story the next day, she got quite a laugh out of it herself, and the next time Stacy was over at my house, Mom took to calling her “Blinky.” Stacy came to embrace her new nickname, and not only was she able to laugh at herself that night, but has actually re-told this story to others. And I am so grateful that she has, because if we can’t suck up our pride and tell our humiliating stories in the name of comedy, what has this world come to?

Unfortunately, the Samurai was sold shortly after high school, and the Blinkster replaced it with a tan Ford Ranger. Definitely not as fun, but I guess this mini pick-up truck is a slight safety upgrade and is more difficult to…pick up (pun intended). Death box, you will be missed.

*I use the word “friend” only because Johnny would sometimes hang out with the same people that Stacy and I did. But for lack of a better word, this guy was a complete asshole.