There Is No Halfway In Life

I used to work in a court ordered halfway house. I’m not the smartest person in the world but I never understood what that meant. Was that place halfway between reality and the belief you were getting better. The return rate was so high in that place it made me sick. But that wasn’t the worst part, the management was the worst. I have looked into the eyes of satan and lived. This must be some kind of weird limbo because there is no way that lady was real. The most evil person that I have ever met and she was my boss.

This place existed just outside of jail but before you got to freedom. My boss, the troll, was its gate keeper. She patrolled the halls as if she could look inside the minds of all the poor souls that were at her mercy. I worked midnights with this lady and she had a way of making you want to kill yourself without ever saying anything negative about you. Her daughter was a stripper and a meth addict and those were her redeeming qualities. I would say her life was an episode of Jerry Springer but it would have to be a 2 parter. She would infect you with her depression and by the end of the night you were so mentally exhausted you actually believed they were your problems.

I have always been a relatively quiet person but there were actually bets on how long I would last. I couldn’t believe it when I found out, I beat all the estimates with about 2 years but in that case nobody really wins. That’s all I will say this time but there is more about this “Halfway house.” To Be Continued.

Somebody Jacked Up My MailBox

I went outside my house the other day and found my mailbox open, crunched on one side and tilted to the left. I was home all day and I didn’t hear anything. This frustrates the hell out of me, no one elses mailbox was jacked up. It just reminded me how much my neighbors suck and how much I want a natural disaster to hit their houses only.

I mean honestly if your going to be a drug dealer at least be a little considerate to the people that don’t turn you in. They just sit outside on their porch as people pull up and pull away. I hope they make meth because I want that house to burn down. Sadly I don’t think that’s the case, I would be happy with spontaneous human combustion. Just the thought of SHC makes me smile a little.

I even tried to fix it but the door just hangs there like a boob that has never seen a bra in its life. It just hung there so sad ripped off one of the hinges like a baby torn from its mother arms. It angers me but what can you do except set up a camera but I’m not gonna do that….yet.

Lowriders of Death 2

I have never had the good times that I have had in my beloved 79 Buick Regal. This car was the cause of some of my greatest adventures. Being a backyard rig it up mechanic intensified the times of misfortune in my car. There is one lesson you must learn being a pathological switch hitting lowrider, never wear clothes that you don’t want to destroy.

One of my favorite stories doesn’t involve fire or terror but it makes me laugh when I think about it. I got my license at the age of 17 but it had restrictions and I practiced twice before I went and got it. Needless to say I didn’t know how to drive real well, I was working at the age of 16 and I got a car before I had a license. This created some problems when it came to dropping me off at work because I was in high school. My dad would drop me off all the time but after I got my car I would beg him to come get me in the lowrider.

This is also the time when I was learning how hydraulics worked and the ins and outs of hooking up a hydraulic system. I have this bad habit of finding things out the hard way. My hydraulic hoses were left just hanging when they were installed but I didn’t think much of it at the time, everything worked fine what could possibly go wrong. The hoses would drag on the ground when the car would sit too low but I didn’t drive it so what could happen in the back yard.

One day after work I called my dad to come pick me up and then I asked him if the car was working, he said it was so I asked him if he could bring it. After some haggling he agreed to drive the car to my job. As soon as he showed up everyone came out to see it. I picked up the switch box and gave my audience a show, front, back, side to side. As I was hitting the switch all of a sudden, “bzzzzzzzzz” and the left side of the car fell. At this point and time at its lowest the car would sit about 3 fingers off the ground. The sound was the left hose blowing open because the hoses were dragging for so long. I didn’t have a license so my dad would have to drive home which was on the other side of town. I lifted the other side of the car so the car wouldn’t be completely flat on the ground for the drive home.

The following drive home was full of awkward silences sprinkled between rants of “I Told You So” and burning stares of contempt as he glared up at me from the ground his side was stuck on. Hell, I love that story!

Lowriders of Death- The Best Times of My Life

When I was in high school I had a 1979 buick Regal. It was my baby but I treated it like an abusive parent and in return it treated me just as bad. It was an abusive relationship but we loved each other. Me and my dad built this car from the ground up and when I say me and my dad I mean mostly my dad but I got yelled at a lot so it counts when I add me. Neither one of us is a mechanic so you can guess how this went. The frame was wrapped with ¼ inch steel all the way around, so this bad boy was meant to be a lowrider from day one. Brand new engine, and we never did get that thing working perfectly but in my house good enough is good enough.

The first time anything ever went wrong in this car was the first time I took this car to work. I think I should also add that at this point my driving skills are not very good and I rarely drive, I’m 17 by the way. Well it started as a good day the Texas sun was shinning and my crappy job didn’t bother me, not today. I was on top of the world with my baby parked outside waiting for me to punch the clock and get off of work. I was showing the car off to all my coworkers, I started hitting switches front to back and side to side. It was like having a giant remote controlled car, I guess that’s exactly what it is, I was on top of the world as I hit the switches. Then the guys asked me if they could all pile up into the car and feel what hydraulics on a car felt like. That’s when I made a mistake that I would never forget. I started hopping the car, it was getting off the ground and everyone in the car was having a great time. Up to this point I had never hopped the car but it was worth it to show off a little.

It was time to go home so I was giving two friends a ride home, for the sake of this article lets call them Rick and James, Rick was on my way home but James was out of the way at some apartments. I didn’t know this guy that well but he was Ricks friend so I gave him a ride. I was driving down the street when I noticed that a light on my dashboard started to light up, it was the temp light, it was dim at first but as we got closer to where James lived it got brighter. By the time we got to James apartments the light was bright red and I was about to park and pop the hood to see what was wrong. I stopped in the parking lot of the apartments and as I grabbed the shifter there was a pop and the windshield fogged up. Hot moisture all over the windshield and now a gushing sound as well. I popped the hood and put the car in park. That’s when I saw something that I will never forget. The battery had fallen over onto the fan so the fan was stuck cutting into the battery, the car over heated with no fan working and the top of the reservoir had popped off causing the moisture on the windshield. Then James being the mechanic and genius that he was said to turn off the car, NEVER turn off the car when it overheats, and with all his wisdom decided to take the cap off the radiator, NEVER take the cap off the radiator of a car that has just been turned off. SPLOOSH!!! Boiling hot radiator fluid exploded everywhere, I was thankful to have my ninja quick reflexes, radiator fluid in peoples eyes and faces…. People went running holding their faces and eyes.  The engine sat steaming with joy because it had taught me the most important rule of Lowriding, always make sure the battery is tied down.   

Not much more happened after that but it took at least a year before the full extent of the damage was known and fixed. Backyard mechanics what can you say, slight burns and lessons learned.

This isn’t the last of my horror stories in my Lowrider so stay tuned Lowriders of Death shall return