by Julie Carter
It was one of those goofy online tests to find my "true inner vehicle." A 15-question quiz leading to a personality synopsis telling me what kind of "vehicle" I would be if I were a car.
The option wasn't there but certainly should have been. I'm sure I am a ranch pickup.
You know the kind. Not much to look at but it will get you where you need to go, usually. It might choke and gasp a little, but it'll make it. It pulls to the left and has a front-end alignment problem, but you will arrive, if only with a tired right arm.
The fenders don't match, the windows don't work. It's not classy, not elegant, may take a little "herding and handling" to go the right direction, but it'll get you there.
Probably needs some engine work and definitely needs new brakes. The A/C isn't all that good anymore, lots of hot air. Tough, dependable and functional. The kind that could be in a wreck and yet look the same as before the wreck. Yes, my inner vehicle is definitely a ranch pickup.
There was a time when driving a pickup wasn't the status symbol it is today. Every ranch woman longed for a car to drive to town. If you were rich, you might even have a Cadillac. Today the same money will buy you a Cadillac, a single-wide mobile home or a four-door pickup.
A pickup is now called a truck. Used to be "truck" was a very large vehicle with the word "semi" in front of its name, but we've evolved. Advertisements for pickups proudly tout the roomy space for five passengers. I remember the days when three adults and four kids rode in a pickup, all in one seat and the guy in the middle did the shifting.
If the radio worked, the driver was in charge of the dial. It was also an opportunity for a conversation. We would actually talk while driving down the road. Now the back seat of a pickup affords a view of a television screen with a DVD player. The front seat has a radio with AM/FM options as well as CD player, Sirius, Blue Tooth and a dashboard information system that resembles something in a 747 jet airplane. No one talks.
Those ads over the past 25 years have been quite effective. People who have never seen a dirt road drive mega-diesel engine four-wheel drive trucks, have them custom detailed, and listen to computers tell them when to fasten their seat belt, change the oil and fill it with fuel.
The spare tire is now "handily" under the pickup where nobody but a scientist and a linebacker can figure out how to get it off. And walking five miles for help is easier than getting the sissy little complimentary jack out from under the seat that is, of course, loaded with groceries, kids, parts and a week of accumulated mail.
Then, most certainly in the dark on the side of the road with a flashlight in your teeth, you put that handily engineered rod through a little hole handily located next to the license plate hoping to connect with the handily located crank on the apparatus that handily holds the tire under the truck.
Changing a tire on today's "trucks" has caused more people to lose their religion than anything you would usually associate with sin.
It is a great trip down memory lane to the days when we actually drove 55 mph, had no A/C so the windows were always down and no lights so we had to be home by dark.
The stick shift and lack of power steering precluded the ability to talk on cells phones, put on makeup and check email on a laptop, all while driving.
My inner self that is a ranch pickup is most definitely one of those original models.
Almost a collector's item I'm sure.
Julie Carter can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com
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