Step One: Hit a Turkey on the Freeway

You’ll all recall my little incident with a turkey on the freeway the other week. (For those of you wondering, the cost to repair said damage? Over $1,600. I decided to have them go ahead and fix it, since the front grill was completely dead and the bumped had gotten cracked right through. No real desire to have a ton of water rushing up inside the engine compartment when I’m driving, and once I’ve paid my $500 deductible, I don’t really care if it’s $1,000 total or $10,000 total. But still. Ouch.)

I took the car in yesterday to get repaired, and I got my rental to drive in the meantime. Apparently the one Enterprise had available was their lone Dodge Challenger. So I’ve replaced my Civic with a muscle car for the next week or so. I was kind of pleasantly bemused by this, but I knew someone who would be well and truly impressed with the upgrade:

TRC.

He’s gotten much more into cars the past few months, as he and his friends have started noticing there are differences in these four wheeled contraptions they’ve been driven around town all their lives in. When he came home and saw the car, the first words out of his mouth (in a tone of incredulous surprise) were, “They gave you a Dodge Challenger?“

I smiled and nodded. He wanted his picture taken with the car right away, and he promptly asked to sit in the driver’s seat. He then wanted the pic emailed to him, so he could forward it on to all his friends.

So I’m happy to say that my masterplan to be in with the cool fifth graders has finally come to fruition. Sure, it took 25 years, but I play the long game, folks. All I had to do was get old, hit a turkey on the freeway, and get a random rental car assigned to me.

Worked like a charm.

Now if only driving a Challenger made me feel as cool as it makes TRC feel . . .