I suppose this is becoming a weekly thing now, this bit of mind-expanding cerebellum yoga that I like to call Automotive Would You Rather. I believe this is a good, healthy practice for all of us Autopians, as it lets us explore the rarely-approached conundrums of the automotive culture in a free, welcoming environment, not like when you try to bring these issues up at your local Cars and Coffee, and then everyone turns on you and starts pelting you with garbage and the occasional scissor jack.
We’re not like that. So, with that in mind, prepare to choose between these two carefully-crafted Automotive scenarios, generated by the most advanced AI system you can run on a Texas Instruments 99 4/a computer.
SCENARIO ONE: The Seats of Eternal Dampness
While attempting to change your oil filter one afternoon, you find that the filter is screwed on absurdly tight, and you can’t get a good grip on it at all. So, you decide to use the tried-and-true desperation measure of hammering a screwdriver through the whole damn thing and using the leverage of the pounded-in screwdriver handle to grip it and get it off.
Once you punctured the outer skin of the fuel filter, you hear a loud pop and woosh and a glittering miasma shoots out of the hole in the filter and congeals into a roughly humanoid-shaped cloud, perched upon your air cleaner.
The cloud tells you that it is The Oily Genie Of Filtratia, and is delighted to have been freed from that miserable canister, forced to filter out your long-overdue-for-a-change 20W-50. In thanks for its freedom, the Oily Genie will grant you the lone wish it is capable of providing: any car you touch will become yours, legally, emotionally, in every possible way!
You can go to an auto museum and lay hands on a 1936 Cord 810, and boom, it’s yours. Go to a Mercedes-Benz dealer and lean against a new EQS and all the paperwork will materialize in your hands and you can drive it home, that day. Go to a used car lot and stumble backwards into a 1977 Ford Granada that needs a new transmission and has a vinyl top that seems to have contracted mange, and it’s your problem now. You get it: you touch it, you own it.
There’s one catch, though: once you own the car, all the seats will be quite damp, even flat-out wet, for the rest of the life of the car. You can vacuum them or take a blow dryer to them or sop them up with towels, but, sadly, they will always be wet. This also means that if you touch a Bugatti Chiron and sell it, the new owner will have to deal with wet seats, too.
So, to recap: You can own any car in the world car for free, but the seats will always be very, very moist.
Enticing, right? Now let’s go to your next option:
SCENARIO TWO: The Shit You Need To Keep Your Car Running
You’ve just finished changing your oil, so you’re digging a hole behind your house to dump the used oil in, because you’re too damn lazy to take it to the auto parts store to be recycled. You really need to stop doing that.
While digging, your shovel hits something hard; you feverishly dig and scrape and free the object, a human skull, which you quickly realize is the skull of famous CHiPS actor Erik Estrada, something you deduced by the trademark mirrored aviator sunglasses and the words PROPERTY OF ERIK ESTRADA (yes, that one) IF FOUND PLEASE CALL 424.239.1050 that are inscribed on its side.
You call the number and have a conversation with Erik Estrada’s assistant who assures you that Erik will be thrilled to know his skull has been found, safe and sound, and he should be there within the hour to collect it, and please don’t mention anything about his floppy-looking head, which desperately needs its skull back.
Precisely 58 minutes later you hear a sonic boom and see a figure in a parachute gliding down to your yard. It’s Erik Estrada, his misshapen head mostly hidden under a helmet. He shakes your hand and greedily grabs the skull, flinging the sunglasses to the ground before retreating behind a tree, where you hear sickening squishing and cracking noises.
A few minutes later, Estrada emerges, looking hale and handsome, adjusting the angle of his jaw, and beaming a 1,000-watt smile in your direction.
He thanks you profusely, and tells you that you have a reward coming. He pulls a velveteen sack from his pants and removes an amulet, which he places around your neck. You can feel it warmly pulsing against your chest with a strange, powerful energy.
Erik tells you that this amulet has the power to repair any car, in nearly any condition, via powerful dark magic. It can reconstitute rusty panels, materialize missing hoses and belts and other parts, re-hone cylinders, eliminate electrical gremlins, you name it. And all it needs to work is one pound of your stools, in an open box.
Yes, if you defecate while wearing the amulet, and accumulate one pound of enchanted feces, then place the feces in an open box, and then place that box somewhere inside the passenger cabin of a car, the car will, again, via dark magic, become fully repaired.
The fecal box will also be able to prevent damage from happening to the car while the box is in there and the feces is potent – which is, generally, for about a month. Then the feces needs to be replaced. But, this works for crash damage, too: if there’s a box of still-active magic shit in the car, dents will pop out, paint will re-form, scratches will heal, and glass will um, unshatter. It’s really amazing to see.
So, to recap: shit while you’re wearing the Estrada Amulet, and one pound of that shit will repair and protect any car you place it in, for about a month. Refill as often as desired, for as many cars as you want. You could open a car repair shop, as long as you can convince your clients to just deal with a one-pound box of human shit in their car.
Okay, so those are the scenarios! It’s time to vote!
I’ll go with the damp seats and just install seat covers…
Wet seats for sure. A previous boss and fellow car-guy was amazed at how often I manage to find exotics in the wild… I had a Bugatti pull up next to me at a Shell once, and then got caught in traffic with 2 Aventadors on the way home, I couldn’t make out the specifics of the yellow one which passed me before I could get my phone out, but there was a black SVJ right behind him.
It would be nice to have a better use than to tell my (mostly uninterested in cars) friend group “I saw a cool car today” for my superpower.
I drive a 11 year old Wrangler. I feel as though I am already in the wet seat camp. Its not all that bad
Two Words: Tupper Ware! (Thupppt!!! Steel good!). Option 2 fo-sho! Seal that shit up!
Especially when I have a FJ-55 land cruiser, a 1950 Merc pick-up and a 1985 4-Runner (w/ solid axels).
One duce a day (say .5 lbs) = 1 lb every 2 days x 3 = one week of poo = one month of (used to be) very rusty vehicles running as they were intentionally designed. 😀
OR…. I could move out to the rust belt, open a shop and sell shit and make millions! You can’t tell me you wouldn’t pay MONEY to even FIND a car you could wrench on without it falling to little bitty pieces out there. (Torch, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t choose option 2 based off all the shit you brought into your shop, (let alone the shit you sent out!).
Now… if you had said that it’s the SMELL that keeps the rust at bay… well… I’d probably have to go with the moist seats. 🙁
“And all it needs to work is one pound of your stools, in an open box.”
I just gotta say this is just a crappy choice…
The damp seats can be cured with a beaded seat cover
Definitely the box of feces. If it causes the vehicle to repair currently existing damage, that damage doesn’t instantly reoccur if you take it out (or at least that’s not explicitly stated). So just put it in the car for a few minutes when it needs something fixed, then take it right back out. Not as helpful after getting in an accident if it needs the repairs to limp home, but a small price to pay for the best of both worlds.
Would this work on motorcycles? Because Poop-Box would be pretty amazing
Give me poop-car. Road Rage takes on a whole new meaning
Wait – think what you could accomplish for the classic car industry with just a colonoscopy prep.
There’s some true societal benefits here that can be realized with a simple “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” philosophy applied to our daily hygiene routines.
Places like the Lane Motor Museum could wipe out all their budget concerns and simultaneously revive everything in their collection if there were an admission option along the lines of “$12 or one turd per adult, children free with dirty diaper”.
You’re welcome.
Well, I work for the local sewer utility already, sooooo……
Choose the damp seats, take possession of a bunch of cars, and then start a global charity providing people with eternally self-replenishing water sources. All you need is a little work to squeeze the water out of the seats. The water never runs out, the cars can be easily transported from place to place – this could basically solve any drought or water crisis. If we could get some manufacturers to work with me – design new “vehicles” that are basically just a stool mounted to a skateboard, sign over to me technical documents giving me ownership of the factory, and we can manufacture millions of these handy water fountains for minimal cost. Perhaps, with a little work, someone could figure out how to convert the creation of water out of nothing into clean energy. Thinking even bigger, with some work, we could even start to terraform Mars.
This is, of course, the curse of a mischievous genie, so no doubt it’ll eventually be revealed that this violation of the laws of thermodynamics will have horrible long-term consequences – but that feels like a future-me problem.
I see a Humanitarian of the Year award coming your way.
You could also use the power for evil. Take posession of the cars of your enemies and then quickly and quietly transfer ownership back to them before they notice.
Arnie Cunningham would still be alive today if he just kept a box of shit in Christine instead of getting mixed up in all that demonic possession. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed Buddy Repperton’s crap on his dashboard, because the car would have already fixed itself by the time he got there. It would have been an entirely different story altogether.
Poop, all the way. For one, I live with certain… conditions, which makes keeping that box full particularly ready.
Secondly, the poop box is full of loopholes. Go to a scrapyard, get a seat from your dream car, and put the box on it. Boom, your car regrows magically. Just re-title and have at it. If it gets busted up, put in a fresh box and remove.
Does the box need to be like, OPEN? Or can it be a gallon zip lock in a waterproof pelican case type of situation?
“And all it needs to work is one pound of your stools, in an open box.”
Can you gift the amulet to David Tracy?
But… then what would he do with his time? So… much… time…
After a couple of difficult shitbox showdowns, I was more primed for this lighthearted article than I thought.
The Eric Estrada part had me laughing out loud!
I thought the actual shit box scenario was safer. I missed the part about it needing to stay in the car before I voted, but I’ll live with that.
Y’all ain’t right
“What’s in the box!?!”
“You don’t want to know what’s in the box”
I would be both the greatest and shittiest demo derby champion in history.
And the great thing about the poop box is its diagnostic uses. Not sure if that vibration is an out of balance tire, suspension or steering issue? One box fill later and you’re taking a quick glance to see which parts changed before placing your order and disposing of said diagnostic device.
Wife walks in as I am squatting over a box in the garage
Wife: WTF are you doing!
me: Diagnosing the wobble in the front end of your car!
I like the way you think!