A question that scares me

“Hey don’t you drive a white Lumina?” That question at that place sent a short spurt of fear in my mind. Many years ago I did indeed drive a white Chevy Lumina. It was a vehicle we purchased when we returned from a finished project in Mexico, and over the years it has served us well. There was one incident though….


My father in law, a man who I admired greatly, was very ill for a couple of years. He was never able to leave the hospital bed that he took to for surgery to repair a dangerous aneurism, even after the surgery he continued to deteriorate. We lived in Mission Viejo and would often drive the thirty miles to visit him. He could not speak from his bed but was lucid and he so loved our family visits. During the summer we decided to drive up for one of those many visits. It was a hot day with the Santa Ana winds blowing. Santa Ana’s are a dry hot wind that steals the moisture from the air and make the slightest breeze an unpleasant movement of warm air. Combined with the clarity of the hot sun, it was definitely beach weather, about the only place to escape the heat outside. I told the kids to get a bite to eat before we go and the kids do what kids normally do, they go for the quickest left over to heat and scramble for every clean bowl or plate that might be available (we would have to do the dishes before mom got home from work, and there was a pile to be sure). My oldest daughter was 16 with my son Jared at 13 and our youngest Elizabeth at 10.


As we rode that 5 to 405 transition we saw how heavy the traffic was going to be coming home, it is a distant storm, no worries at this point. My youngest wanted to open a window to get some fresh air. As the window came down and the outside invaded our air conditioned sanctity, the blast furnace of the Santa Ana’s made itself manifest. It was hot, smelled of rubber and concrete and was about as fresh as post expiration date milk. After a moment or two with a sigh, and desperate encouragement from her older brother and sister she reluctantly rolled it back up. But her face looked funny, not the laughing funny, or amused funny, more like the “funny I see an iceberg ahead captain” look. My focus was on the road and doing my best impression of Batman weaving in and out of traffic in his Bat mobile. My friends by the way will attest to that as my normal form of travel.


We turned off the 405 into Garden Grove. We were almost there, when my daughter looked up at me in the front seat. “Daddy, I don’t feel well”.
“We’ll be there in a minute Elizabeth, you can stretch or go to the bathroom.”

“OK, but hurry”

No one ever has to tell me to hurry, I do that naturally. But hurry is not the same as “be there this instant”. My daughter decided to help me understand the difference. You know there are a lot of words for vomit, many of them came to my mind at that moment. Heave, regurgitate, ruminate, disgorge, retch, emit, hurl, puke, worship the porcelain god, blow chunks… of all these words, “vomit” does the least justice to what happened. I think “blow chunks” creates the clearer picture of “the incident”. You should know my experience in various climates, geographies and third world countries have given me a very clear understanding of the many different methods of relieving one’s self of unnecessary food through this unique rejection process. My daughter on that day, taught me a new aspect I had not considered. She presented me with an adverb for the term “vomiting”. The word was “projectile”, and it wasn’t the single shot of a flintlock either, it was the staccato of a Thompson 45. I have seen firemen dispense less liquid in a four alarmer. Nor was she specific like a laser or hellfire missile in a drone attack. No, that would have been too kind. In an almost Matrix like slow motion I can review in my mind how she spewed forth an incredible amount of this semifluid substance, moving her head to ensure that nothing seen or unseen by her would be missed on the dash, the seat, the floor, and “dear lord in heaven” that black hole between seats where we lose things thinking perhaps you could one day retrieve them. The inundation was complete and offered up a new broken terrain of food particles mixed with unknowable primeval substances of the body. 


And then came the smell. The concept of smell is interesting. It is the strongest impeller of memory; it awakens our past within us, like Thanksgiving Dinner smells we often have fond memories when certain smells reach us. It can also be an impeller of romance, love, excitement (ask any perfume company). In this case though, it also brings sympathy or a desire for harmony, just not in a good way. I sometimes amuse myself by going on YouTube and finding a howling dog, which in turn makes my own dog begin to howl with the instinct of harmony. We humans aren’t far removed from that. When one person lets out a satisfying yawn, what do we do? What are you doing now? When one person decides to “disgorge” what does that particular smell induce in all of us? The smell was wretched (love how the root word works for me here) and it proved itself powerful. My other two kids suddenly found themselves in a battle of the spirit over the body. To lose to the desires of the body at this point was out of the question (there must be a religious lesson in there somewhere). They struggled mightily as did I, in holding down our sympathy vomitus.


Thirty miles from home, there was nothing to do but turn around and head back. Back into the approaching storm of traffic. In an effort to relieve us of the fetid smell, we opened the car windows. It is amazing how heat can intensify a smell. We decided to close the windows and turn up the AC. It is amazing how cold air in an enclosed space simply focuses and illuminates that smell. We alternately chose between Scylla and Charybdis on the way home, opening the window some, then turning up the air conditioner, or turning it way up and rolling down the windows. It did little more than offer a variety to the doom placed before us. Life was a series of holding one’s breath and then taking in tiny wisps of air to breath. Any act no matter how illusory was helpful. After almost an hour long drive we returned home. The kids took Elizabeth inside to get her cleaned up and then I looked at the car. It was a “crusty” situation. Like any good father I rolled up my sleeves, took the car keys and drove to the nearest auto wash.


Auto washes are wonderful places sometimes. You get to see the cool machines clean the outside of the car, sometimes though you forget the guys who vacuum and clean the inside. Not this time. To me they had become an integral part of that place of business. I drove up and quickly hopped out as I walked towards that ubiquitous front man who always tries so hard to upsell. 

“Hey amigo”, he said with the smile he has used a thousand times that day.

“Hey, how are you today” I replied.

“So what can we do for you today amigo?”

“I think I might want to wash the car, maybe shampoo the interior.”

“Well you know, we have an ‘Executive Wash’ that will wash and polish the outside and shampoo the interior, clean the mats…”

“Dash too?” I interrupted.

“Armor all will be an extra five, but we do a real good job”.

I have been upsold many times in my life. At the moment I was thinking “kismet”, yes, “kismet”. The wheel had turned.

“OK, that sounds good, armor all the sides inside as well right?”

“Sure amigo”

“What scent would you like?”

“Jasmine, I think, yes, jasmine would be good. And you guys will do a good job right?”

“Always” he said with a smile.

So I took the ticket and walked quickly away. But as I turned the corner to go into the room I heard what was a natural reaction as the vacuum guys opened the door. “Madre de Di… “ Mixed in with several other choice words that one need not be fluent in to understand. They were cut off as I walked in to the main office to pay. 

I tipped well when I walked out to pick up my car. I had seen them pointing me out, and those assigned to other cars smirking and laughing at their coworkers assigned to clean my Lumina. I felt bad, but was also gratefully removed from the effort of cleaning the car after my daughter’s tour de force. Let’s call it a necessary guilty pleasure.

So last week, many years after the incident, I drive up in my pick up truck to get it washed and waxed. As I walk away, the guy with the permanent smile looks at me and says “Hey don’t you drive a white Lumina”?

“Not me” I replied “I like pick up trucks”. ( I do prefer them).

He looked confused; shrugged and continued on with the next upsell for a customer. 

Life goes on.

Post script: My Lumina had one last adventure after it left us. Little did we know the outlaw streak that it held all those years. But that’s another story.