Butterball - May 18, 2012

[note: this was written during a writing exercise: we had 20 minutes to write something inspired by the word "butterball". This is the result, unedited, exactly as it appeared when time ran out. You can read all of them in the waves category]]

Butterball- Squiddy Geiger - May 18, 2012

Butterball sputtered and died. Joe tried starting her again, but her starter motor whirred and clicked, and fell silent. It wasn't a surprise, really. He'd been neglecting her. He'd take a look after work, when he had time. He'd take the other car instead, even though he preferred to drive Butterball.

She was his first car, purchased when he was seventeen, with the money he'd saved carefully for months. $500 represented a lot of late nights at the drive thru, selling people food of questionable quality.

It was a lot of money for a car that didn't even run, but it was a project. His father had said he would help where needed, but that Joe should do the majority of the work. "A man needs to know how a car works," he'd said.

Joe could fix the car, as he had many times over the years, but it wasn't as much fun as those first years. . It had been fine as a teen to spend umpteen zillion hours in the garage, away from the sun. Now it was just a chore.

He kicked the tire of his beloved 1971 Volkswagen Super Beetle. It was the first year they'd made them, and by the time he got his, it was 15 years old and in terrible shape, but he'd loved it. It was his cousin Bill who'd given the car her name: Butterball. He said she looked like a turkey, ready to be cooked. That, of course, was when she'd been rusty and brownish-red.

By the time he was done with her, she was almost perfect inside and out. A beautiful shiny dark blue, and with all original parts. Dad had done more than just help with the work, he'd sprung for much needed - and expensive - parts as gifts for birthdays and Christmas.

Joe sighed, and headed over to the Toyota in the garage. Reliable but decidedly less interesting than Butterball, the Corolla didn't even have a name, or a personality. It was a tool, to get him from A to B. Butterball was a force, an entity. Temperamental and noisy and lovely and underpowered and fun to drive. Maybe this was good. Maybe it was what Joe needed. Some quality time with an old friend.

Posted by Squiddy at May 18, 2012 09:15 PM | TrackBack