Its 1:00 am on a Friday night and I’m back from school for the summer at my parent’s house. None of my friends are around so I decide to go for a bit of a late night Coker ride with the summer night air growing cooler and cooler. As I leave my house and walk to the sidewalk I notice the ground under my feet is damp. It had just recently rained however the ground was now drying.
“Don’t get on that thing near my truck, you’re going to ****ing dent it!” I hear my father’s previous demand echo through my head. I began walking further down the sidewalk to avoid my father’s parked truck with a rolling mount. Now, I rarely ever fail my rolling mounts, not since my first attempts months back. With my first foot planted haphazardly onto the pedal I begin to shift my weight to bring the trailing leg up when -SQUEAK- the wet rubber sole of my shoe slips off the pedal. With no feet on the pedals I begin to feel myself tipping… tipping towards the very end of my father’s truck which I hadn’t quite yet passed. I reach out to brace myself on the hood however the beads of water from a passing rainstorm offer me no friction and my arm slides swiftly across the hood allowing my rib cage and full body weight clean access to the edge of the vehicle.
“****!” I examine the truck and spot a large dent reflected by the street lights in parking lot across the street. I run inside and hop on the computer where I tell Kelly Hickman and dudewithasock what had just happened and receive a few laughs at my misfortune. I open up Google and enter my query: “DIY car dent removal.” The only results I could find was the usage of dry ice or a pressurized air can with hairdryer. Neither of these will do I think to myself, I needed it fixed before daylight. Bringing up dude’s IM window I type “plunger!” He laughs, claiming it won’t work.
Back outside I find myself standing there with a glass of soapy water and the household plunger. I wet both the car and the plunger as struggle for several minutes with it refusing to take hold of the curved surface. In between plunges I find myself glancing around to nearby houses and cars wishing no one was watching. After several minutes with no success I bring myself to do what I had wished to avoid at all costs; with my hands I press all edges of the plunger into the car body to provide adequate suction. I push down and pull out, the plunger sticks! “AHAH, and they laughed!” I celebrate in my mind as I pull and hear a pop. I had succeeded in significantly reducing the size of the dent. What was then a foot wide is now the slightly larger than a quarter. I continue to to plunge away for several minutes but to no avail, this will have to do.
Smiling now due to my half success I walk towards my house. Entering the kitchen grinning ear to ear at having proven dudewithasock wrong and now wielding a plunger in one hand and a half full glass of soapy water in the other I realize the light is on.
“Oh… Hi mom…” I say nervously as I spot my mother.
“What the hell are you doing?” my mother questions me with a disgusted look on her face. I look down at the plunger and then at the soap water. “Well… I… Uh…” I desperately stumble for words while trying to think up a legitimate excuse. However, what was I to say in such a bizarre and uncomfortable situation?
