I bought a run-down 1994 jeep last fall.
Here is a picture of the jeep in the rainy shopping center parking lot, looking toward the entrance to our gift shop.
I haven’t driven it much – I only intended it to be a reserve vehicle, and it also helped as a kind of reassurance to Arthur that I wasn’t “taking” his car away from him (which he nevertheless never drives). But, just these past two weeks, with our houseguest driving the “Blueberry” (Arthur’s 2011 Chevy Tahoe), I’m reduced to “slumming” in this back-up car.
Every time I drive this rattletrap, I am reminded of my father – who gravitates to broken down old rust-heap vehicles like a photon to a black hole.
I bought the car from coworker Jan’s husband, Richard. Jan calls the car the “Apocalypsemobile” – because of the Mad Max vibes it gives off with its plywood aftermarket accoutrements. In my own mind, I have always pronounced the name “jeep” in the Mexican way (with a j-as-h sound, as in San Jose, hence /hip/). This idiolectic pronunciation is homophonous with the English word “heap”, which in this jeep’s case, isn’t far from accurate. Thus, combining these two facts, the obvious name for this car is “Apocalypse Heap”.
And so it is.
