The Three-Cent Bomb

 

This is another excerpt that doesn't belong on the excerpt page. For one thing, the complete story is here rather than just a teaser. Also this story has nothing to do with the rest of the book. The only similarities with the rest of the book are that it's a true story, and I wrote it. This story takes place in Beloit, Wisconsin in 1969, whereas the rest of the book takes place in the Denver area between 2003 and 2010 in a cab. Enjoy!

 

 

Okay, this story has nothing to do with cab driving. It involves a car though, if that counts. I don’t think it does, so we’ll just call it a bonus story. It was shortly before my high school graduation in my hometown of Beloit, Wisconsin. A car dealership was having a promotion of giving away a used car. They parked the car somewhere and gave a series of clues on the radio to find the car. They called the promotion “The Mystery Car.” Anyway my dad figured out the clues, and he found the car, so he won the car, the mystery car.

They wanted to interview my dad on the radio so he could explain how he figured out the clues. My dad couldn’t make it to the radio interview at the time they wanted him, so he asked me to fill in for him. He explained to me how he figured out the clues and found the car. I went on the radio and explained how I found the car. They even asked me what I was going to do with the car. Without missing a beat, I said that I would give the car to my sister, Jacque, since I already had a car. I probably sounded like a generous brother.

The car was a used Ford Falcon.

 

Let me explain why we called it the three-cent bomb. “Bomb” was a commonly used figure of speech for a car at the time. It was kind of a double figure of speech, because “bomb” usually implied a fast car, and of course we were talking about a used Falcon. The dealership didn’t technically give my dad the car, but they sold it to him for a dollar and gave him the dollar back for gas. By the way, you could buy a lot more gas for a dollar in 1969 than you can at this writing. My dad still had to pay three cents sales tax on the dollar, so the net cost to him was three cents. That’s why we called it the three-cent bomb. Jacque drove the three-cent bomb for about a year, and then I think it died.

 

When I walked in my graduation ceremony to get my diploma, one of the assistant principals standing on stage shaking graduates’ hands commented to someone as he shook my hand, “He’s the one who won the mystery car.” So I just wanted to come clean after all these years and admit that I lied on the radio when I explained how I found the car. I didn’t find the mystery car, my dad did. Whew! Glad I got that off my chest.