You had me at "Hello"

So here I am at Daves' house. I only ran two red lights on the way! There languishing under a huge pile of melting spring snow she sat. First impression...... red, a good sign. Louvers...... retro cool. Spoiler.... cool. I brush piles of snow off the roof.... T-Tops! Red interior! .....and a 4 speed manual transmission. The only drawback so far is a severely cracked dash, broken fog lights, a small crack in the front air dam and junk yard faded paint. I experienced that nervous "buzz" I used to get when, as a high schooler with money in hand, I allowed myself to be pushed over the edge and commit  to a new project. Whether it was a new beater car, an old guitar or a motorcycle, that feeling flowed out of some mysterious place and consumed me with joy the moment I "gave in" and jumped off the cliff. 

 I phoned my long suffering wife right away. Now what makes her so cool is her ability to place herself in another persons shoes. Really, it's a rare gift. So I blurt out my storey and ask for her opinion.......... I can SEE her smiling through the telephone as she asks a few questions, helps me sort my thoughts, formulates a budget and tells me that she thinks it sounds perfect! AND she only mentions once that I sold my Mercedes only yesterday and maybe I should wait...... Well back to my mechanic I go and seal the deal. He told me that he would dig it out tomorrow and bring it down to the shop and give it a spring wake up. I don't sleep. At all. Not one wink. Nada.

 I spend the night on the internet investigating this new thing in my life called "Mustang" Oh The Humanity!!!! What have I gotten my self into!! I discover a whole world (literally) of possibilities. It's like I've fallen into , at the same time, Heaven and hell........ like I've discovered that my wife is, at the same time, a stripper and a nun!! There are people that modify these things to the point of the ridiculous just because they can. People who keep cars in hermetically sealed time capsules, letting them out only to breath the rarified air of selected dust free auto shows. There are women with pink fire breathers, young high schoolers with no brains, (and some with)!! People drag racing 500hp rust buckets, people auto crossing mustangs lowered to within an inch of their scarred under bellies. The possibilities are literally endless. No, MORE than that. These cars and the after market that services them have become a direct reflection of the psychology of the western world. If you doubt me just try an experiment. Sample 5 different chat rooms on fox body mustangs. You might find sites that allow guys to post photos of their girl friends posing nude (or damn close) next to $20,000.00 nitrous injected, slammed, show cars. Or you might find engineers that have methodically rethought every shortcoming of the fox chassis and found ingenious solutions that make a fox handle better than a porsche and out drag a Ferrari. There are sites where guys discuss little numbers stamped on the inside of 1982 GT hood scoops to determine which production run the car was in. REALLY! It goes on and on. Humanity in it's most honest and naked self.... for the world to see. I was hooked. In one blissful moment of letting go I became a Mustang Nerd. The only thing left for me to do was to survive the time between sunrise and my scheduled delivery of (Daves' Name not mine) "The Little Pony".