I feel it's only necessary to dedicate an entire post to the Tracker, since she will hopefully be 'retiring' after this week. She has been with me since I first got my license at the age of 16. The Tracker became somewhat of a whore when she arrived at Southeast High School my junior year; it may have been her vibrant red exterior, Lego like build or "I don't care" attitude, but she definitely didn't lack attention. The boys in my grade decided to throw things at her, walk all over her, and even hit her and leave, no explanation. My girl friends were a little gentler with the tracker's physical appearance; however, the inside was a different story. The girls thought because I drove a '99 Chevy Tracker and they drove Jetta's, Camry's, Jeeps, Saab's and Jaguars meant my car was the obvious choice for internal mutilation. It was between The Tracker and my friend Judith's car, The Shitter, that got saw the worst abuse. Vomiting, passing out, eating fast food, or ripping off my door handles were all trashy moves that the tracker didn't deserve. I gave one free pass if I performed one of these activities in their car.
After almost nine years and several missing pieces later, the tracker will finally get it's rest, but not before I tell her story (s).
The first major hit the tracker took occurred on a snow day in high school. The great thing about the tracker is, snow days didn't matter, she has 4WD, which was probably made of plastic like the rest of the Lego but I drove like it was the real thing. I know I was joined by a fellow Lego person in my passenger seat, but I can't remember who. I was either reaching for something on the passenger side of my car or dancing (which is probably the more legitimate reason) that I seemed to drift to the right at a good 40mph. I ran the side of my tracker straight into a surprisingly hard snow bank. The tracker's "4WD" kicked in and plowed over the top of the snow bank. When I finally straightened back onto the actual street, I pulled into the hair salon at the next intersection, I got out to find/not to find the right side of my front bumper. Character!! I wish there would've been a video camera in the car because I'm assuming our facial expressions were priceless, they always are right before a near death experience in The Tracker.
The next major incident occurred while The Tracker was minding her own business. Parked in a culdesac at my boyfriend at the time's place. He had an exceptionally good-looking yet cock of a roommate whom always had something sarcastic to say. You can imagine my humiliation when his roommate called out from downstairs, "Claire! I think someone just crashed their motorcycle scooter thing into the front of your car." I ran downstairs and opened the front door while pushing 'Mr. Cock' out of my way. And there she was, The Tracker, looking like she had just straddled a man and his motorized bike. I can't say if it was a scooter, a bike, or a motorcycle, but it was a mix of them all and big enough to do some damage to the Lego's appearance. When I went outside to find the man unharmed and slowly picking up his brand new motorsike, I couldn't help but feel bad for the poor guy.
"I'm so sorry, I just got this bike for Christmas and I'm just riding it around the circle to try and get the hang of it," he moped.
"You obviously don't have the hang of it yet!!"- J/k i didn't say that, i felt too bad for him.
But seriously, he obviously needed to "test scoot" in an open field rather than an ice patched culdesac. After calling my dad, like I always do when something happens to The Tracker (it's actually his Lego on paper), I told the guy to just give me his phone number and I wouldn't turn it into insurance, not worth my time for a motorsike accident. I also told him, keep practicing but somewhere else, I'm not moving The Tracker. I came back into the house to find Mr. Cock laughing and making some smart ass comment about the Tracker's appearance. Maybe the Tracker wasn't born 'a looker' doesn't mean she will EVER lack character like Mr. Cock.
For the record: I have nothing against Mr. Cock, I actually like him, he's just an asshole.
Next debacle, I got into a T-BONE car accident at 6 a.m. on the morning of my vacation to Minnesota. The guy who rammed The Tracker had no insurance, no money and apparently no name because he was gone in two seconds. (Not funny, end of story).
The final Tracker incident (that I will write about) occurred in my college years. I had great friends, but my friends were crazy, my friends loved/love Vodka shots and they obviously wouldn't be my friends if the same qualities didn't apply for myself. One vodka filled night I was being a stupid, vodka loving, crazy girl. My friend and I wanted to do 'after hours' which actually meant after the 21 year olds hours since we were not of age. We went to an apartment complex by campus known for after hour parties; however, you had to know the code to get through the complex gate. We didn't know the code and apparently calling was not an option. The car in front of us knew the code so we did what anyone would do, caught the tail end of their 'gate opening'. We were in! My driver's side mirror was not. I couldn't go back to pick up the detached mirror. We were in, if we went back I would 1) have to deal with the reality of what just happened and 2) we would be at square one, no after hours code!
We partied, had ourselves an unnecessarily good time, and I woke up in the morning to find myself passed out on a couch and my friend gone. I stumbled to the bathroom to splash a few drops of water in my dry eyes so my contacts wouldn't completely pop out, quickly grabbed my things and I left out the back door which was the fastest and classiest way to The Tracker. After I jumped the fence in my dress from the night before, I gazed up with my already blurry vision to see a man in a golf cart parked directly next to The Tracker. As I got closer, I realized the man in the golf cart had The Tracker's driver side mirror in his golf cart's passenger seat.
"Is this your car, Miss?" - he asked me.
"Yes, this is my Tracker," - I slurred.
"Then would this be your mirror?" - he asked.
"No." - I said, it was like word vomit (STUPID! I thought to myself. No sir, that must be someone else's red tracker mirror you found at the front of the complex after slamming into the code machine to enter your after hours community)
"Are you sure this isn't your mirror, because it looks like the red paint from your mirror on the front code machine and you are missing a mirror, miss," - he explained to me (unnecessary sir, we both know that is my mirror)
"Oooh yeah, that is mine. I was gonna pick that up on my way out this morning, sorry about that," I told him. Which I was going to do, but for different reasons.
"Well, I have called the police so they should be showing up shortly to come and look at the damage and see what we should do from here."
"The police?" I might have peed in my pants a little at this point.
The police officer came with a rather nonchalant attitude about the whole situation; however, the words coming out of his mouth weren't so nonchalant. He asked me several times if I had been drinking the night before and told me the amount of damage I had done to the front code machine. All because I wanted to swoop in behind a car to catch the open gate.
The officer came over to The Tracker after speaking with the complex manager and told me he was being very nice and decided not to press charges. Pressing charges? Really? I was able to leave after a few more jabs and jokes from the police officer, which weren't even funny but I had to laugh because he had a gun.
Needless to say, I'm an idiot, but I do believe it was the Tracker's calm and innocent looks that allowed me to get away free and clear this after hours morning, well not exactly free.
I got a new mirror 3 years later. :)
