The Beast

When I was in college I drove a 1979 Suburban which became known to my friends and associates as "The Beast". (In the Winter months my friend Jon called "The Fridge" because the heater took about 20 minutes to warm up, and most of the places we went were accessible within ten minutes, so it was ALWAYS freezing.) The Beast was incredibly handy when traveling with groups, especially since I drove it before seatbelt laws were what they are today. It was particularly useful one night when my 6’7” friend felt the urge to channel his Inner Hood Ornament and posed himself on the hood of The Beast as we navigated a Taco Bell drive-thru. Awesome. Here I am with my roommates, one of which asked, “Shouldn’t there be a little bar that comes down in front?” when I was driving too fast once for her taste. (And I do mean “ONCE” because I was an excellent driver (hi Dad) who always changed the oil (remember Dad? When you called me on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to make sure I had added oil? Well, I did. On Friday.) and never ran into curbs. Except maybe that one time. No wait, TWO times. But that was it, I swear.)



And here I am again when we decided to kidnap a house full of boys in an ongoing prank war that I had engaged in to get my future husband’s attention. And for the record, in this picture I have a necklace of sorts around my head – I would further explain, but it’s the kind of thing that was only funny once, because when you are a 21-year-old non-drinking chaste co-ed at Brigham Young University, thrills come cheap.



Also, see that guy in the blue robe? Well, his wife reads this blog, and I want her to know that one time we were at the boys’ apartment when he was wearing that robe, and he took a split, blue racquetball and put it on his nose to be funny. I tell you this so you can appreciate how far he’s come, and so you can understand why we nicknamed him “Grover”.

BUT THAT IS NOT ALL. Because, you see, the BEST part about this car is not what you see on the outside (*gasp* Even the orange stripe?!) but what is hiding on the INSIDE. For my 20th birthday my Dad gave me a musical horn for that car.
Flashback:
“A musical horn?! That is so awesome Dad! How do we put it in?”
“Let’s see, I think if we just cut out a hole in this here dashboard….”
“???”
And that’s the day I got my musical horn. After that, with the push of a button I could play songs like “Happy Birthday”, “Yellow Rose of Texas”, and I could even program the Cougar fight song. It was loud – you could hear me coming from blocks away. Had I been in a family neighborhood and not surrounded by college students I fear children would have been lined up on street corners with dollar bills waving out from their hands hoping to score a Good Humor bar. I LOVED it! It was a sad day when that car was no longer a part of my life.

BUT. My life is not over yet, and a couple of weeks ago when my friend and I were discussing our soon-to-be future of our children needing vehicles, the topic of my love affair with The Beast and my musical horn came up. “I bet they still sell stuff like that on the internet,” was all my friend had to say before we were both online, talking back and forth about what we were finding. My friend found it first. “Check this out!” she exclaimed while reading the further advertising on the website and filled me in, “It says, ‘As featured on Pimp My Ride’!” That. Was the website. For me. Ten minutes later I called Cory at work to announce, “You’re off the hook for Mother’s Day – I just bought my present.” So if you’re driving around and you hear the sudden outburst to the tune of “La Cucaracha”, or “The Star Spangled Banner”, or the deep voice of a man saying, “Hey Baby”, it’s either me or the guy from Pimp My Ride. I hope it’s me, because then you could yell out your window, “Hey! I read your blog!” and then we could pull over and go to lunch.

Taco Bell drive-thru sound okay?