One Car: 20 Bucks
Now Playing: HELL'S HIGHWAY
Big day today. I sold a car, bought nearly $200 in clothes, cooked a meal, hooked up a VCR, watched four movies, and updated my blog.

Years ago, my brother handed down to me his 1992 Chevrolet Cavalier, which had a ton of miles on it, as well as a busted windshield, a faded paint job and other unsavory features. But it had an air conditioner, which my car at the time--an '84 Chevy Malibu--did not, so I took it. And drove it for a long time, even though it was hideous, uncool and not much fun.

For about a year, it's been parked in my dad's yard, looking the worse for wear. I'd been putting off getting rid of it, just because I knew it would be a major hassle. The battery is dead, it's parked 20 miles away, making it hard to show to prospective buyers. I would have paid a Junk Car Fairy to come out of the sky and put it out of my misery.

Today I'm in my dad's yard, trying to figure out if I should try to jumpstart the Cavalier, when his neighbor walks over to me.

"Are you gettin' it running?"
"Eh, I don't know. I just wanna get rid of it."
"How much you want for it?"
"PPPTTTT! I'll take 20 bucks for it, just to get it out of my sight."
"Hold on, I got 20 bucks."

The easiest--and cheapest--car sale in the history of automotives. I guess he wants to fix it up for his son when he turns 16. And here I thought I was going to have to call junkyards and probably get it towed someplace and spend a ton of dough dumping it, and I end up giving it away for $20 with no effort at all. As someone who rarely benefits from good fortune, that was a nice boost.

I needed some summer threads, so I went shopping afterward, picking up some decent casual shirts (no T-shirts this time) and two pairs of shorts. My torso is a bit, um, difficult to fit, so it was hard finding inexpensive clothing. Geez, I hope what I bought fits, come to think of it.

Today I watched SWAMP FIRE, a limp Paramount cheapie from 1946 that starred two former Tarzans, Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe, and POWERFORCE, an often hilarious Hong Kong kung fu cheapie about a crimefighting team called Dragonforce using their super-karate to fight ninjas who have stolen and brainwashed a princess.

Chicken came over tonight for goulash and to watch an interesting double feature. First was THE GUMBALL RALLY, which has the same basic plot as CANNONBALL and CANNONBALL RUN with more slapstick. Michael Sarrazin, Gary Busey, Joanne Nail (SWITCHBLADE SISTERS) and other mid-level stars run an illegal cross-country race in badass Corvettes, Rolls Royces, Cobras, Ferraris, etc. Then came HELL'S HIGHWAY, which is a documentary about the Highway Safety Foundation of Ohio, which produced dozens of gory, disturbing driver's education scare films during the '50s, '60s and '70s. Some of them are very explicit, showing actual mangled corpses at accident scenes, and it's amazing that schools would show them to teenagers. I know mine did. I bet none does today. How about yours?