Moo-ing Mercedes by Juliet Aucreman
I was raised to mock Mercedes. In my New England Puritanical upbringing, Mercedes luxury cars were equated with evil itself. Mercedes stood for nothing but over-inflated egos. For most of my life, not owning a Mercedes was easily accomplished.
A few years ago, I ran into a little dilemma. I had the perfect car, a car whose paint job yelled “Howdy!” A brilliant turquoise, my car put blushing Smurfs to shame. Though I often lost my keys, my day-planner, my wallet, and my mind, I never misplaced that car. Its constant presence gave my life stability.
But my husband was biased against my car. He deemed Ford Escorts unsafe. Despite its obnoxious visibility, glowing like toxic waste as it sped down the highway, Corky remained unmoved. So I started hunting around for a replacement.
One day I spotted an ad at the local library: $6,000 dollars for a cute-looking white Mercedes. It had 97,000 miles on it: surely the Mercedes would run for another 300,000 miles. I reported my discovery to Corky, and when he didn’t nix the idea. I knew he was intrigued.
Corky called the Mercedes’ owner. She worked at a museum. She had bought the Mercedes new, and had maintained it fastidiously. All of this scored major points with Corky, so we met up with her. Corky inspected the Mercedes, every inch of it, examining the paint, examining the engine, examining its karma. I know he was ecstatic, because we bought the car.
Suddenly, I was driving a white Mercedes. I felt uneasy. My upbringing dictated that driving a Mercedes was sinful - I knew I made other drivers feel resentful and inadequate. So I tried to be extra courteous on the freeway to show other drivers that even a Mercedes owner could be nice. By the hundreds, they shot past me in their own Mercedes.
And now I had a new problem. White Mercedes cars in Orange County, California, are like suburban camouflage. Now, when I left my car in parking lots, it just vanished. Trying to increase my car’s find-ability, I stumbled upon an obvious solution: painting the outside with black splotches, like a cow. Trying to contain my excitement, I shared my idea with Corky.
His response? “It’ll ruin the paint. You’ll never be able to sell it.”
That surprised me. I thought I’d be driving the Mercedes forever. Still, I wanted to show respect, so I racked my brain for ways to protect the car from black paint. Then it hit me.
“I’ll just paint white spots on the car first. That’ll protect the car from the black spots.”
Corky said nothing, so obviously he approved.
The next Saturday, I started painting white acrylic spots on the Mercedes. As I began the fourth large spot, I heard Corky enter the garage.
“That’s NOT funny. I want you to remove those spots immediately.”
“But we have to protect the car from the black spots…”
“You’re not putting black spots on the car.”
“I’m not?”
“It’ll cause the paint to fade un-uniformly.”
That stumped me. I’d assumed that white was “faded” incarnate. I looked at Corky’s monochromatic car. I felt sorry for it; it would never look like a cow.
I agreed to pick off the soft paint, on the condition that Corky be nice about the situation. Reluctantly, he agreed. I invited the neighborhood children over to help pick with their fingernails. At first they were reluctant - they wanted the car to look like a cow, too. But soon a bunch of them took up stations around the sedan, and scratched away.
As I picked at the paint, images of my ancestors buzzed through my head. They were driving through the clouds…in white Mercedes. Whenever they honked their horns, their Mercedes mooed.
All their Mercedes were spotted – that made sense – how else to find them in the clouds?
Rating: User: JulietAucreman 2007-05-23T08:11:39.017Z
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juliet | aucreman | robby | starbuck | story | mooing | cows | spots. |