Frigid Doug

My brothers and I had a friend, Doug who was very fond of air conditioning. He had his own window A/C unit in his room and he kept it freezing at all times. Usually, it was colder in his room in the summer than it was in the winter! He also had a very good A/C in his car.

Speaking of Doug's car, let me tell you a little story about cars, sunflower seeds and Batman.  Doug had a late 70's model car. I'm not sure what kind it was. Suffice it to say it was a land yacht. The A/C in that thing could freeze you out! The car had vinyl bench seats and when he'd take a corner too fast, you were likely to slide all over the place across the seats. Doug was fond of doing "bat turns."  He'd basically fail to slow down when turning corners. We thought it was hilarious.

Since the car was a bit on the old side, he didn't strive to keep the thing spotless either. He loved sunflower seeds but rather than spitting the hulls out the window or into a trash can, Doug just spit them on the floorboards! You never knew what you'd find on those floorboards. Cups, sunflower seeds, trash, mud, probably bugs and worse.  Are you getting the picture yet?

I mentioned that Doug liked to keep his environment cold and I am not understating this. To ride in his car was like riding in a refrigerator! It was brutal! The A/C was always on full blast, as cold as it could get. I wound up looking like the guy pictured here, minus the snotty moustache. Usually I'd forget how cold it was in the car and I'd end up having to rummage around looking for clothes left in there, and would layer as best as I could.

One night my brothers and I went riding around town with Doug just for jollies. Luckily, it was fairly late in the evening and there weren't too many cars out which probably saved our lives. Doug decided to do a "siren run" down the main drag. What is a siren run you ask? Doug's siren run involved speeding down the main drag at about 50-60 miles per hour, honking the horn and blasting through stoplights, whether they were red or green. We made it through that portion of the ride without getting killed but the bat turn turned out to be our downfall.

Picture this...a crazy man drives a late model land yacht like a madman, blasting through intersections without slowing down, honking the horn, with passengers inside shivering and freezing, sunflower seeds and discarded cups swirling about the cabin and the radio blaring. Oh yeah, and every person in the car was screaming like it was the end of the world (it added to the atmosphere). Crazy man decides to do his famous bat turn only he misjudges the turning area and the rear wheel slams into a culvert and blows out. I think it ruined the rim also. We were somewhat outside of town, off the beaten path and this was in the days before cell phones so we were stuck. Fortunately, a friend drove past and saw us and helped us out by giving us a wheel to use.

You'd think that after what happened we'd be shaken up and would want to go home. Nope. We put that borrowed tire on the car and headed to the store to buy more beer so we could ride around for a while longer. I can't remember for sure, but I'd bet you a dollar Doug bought sunflower seeds to share with everyone. Kids, don't ever try this yourself. We were young and stupid. We had a blast but were awful lucky we didn't get killed. It makes me cold just thinking about it all. ;-)