It all started after I decided to get my old 1994 Jetta out of storage and try to finish the project I started nearly three years ago. I wont bore you with the details about the car, so to put that long story short, it was ready for a test drive. Currently the car has no muffler. It's very loud, obnoxious and attracts a lot of unwanted attention. It's not loud because I want it to be... in fact, it's loud only because I cannot currently afford a proper exhaust system for it... so I just had the exhaust shop weld in some cheap pieces of pipe while I was figuring out what I wanted to do with the project. I would also like to think that I am passed that point in my life where I use any means possible of attracting attention to myself. For most people, that stage begins at about 15 years of age and continues to about 21, but that's only a loose guideline... I have seen many people well into their 30s exhibiting this childish behavior. Anyways, I hate excessively loud cars.
About the old man. I figure he's probably in his early to mid 70s. He's about 5'6" and probably 180lbs. He wears a tan cowboy hat and a button up shirt. Nearly every day I see him walk up my street... sometimes multiple times per day frequently returning with a mysterious bottle of something inside a brown paper bag.
Anyways, I added a turbocharger to my Jetta so we have been trying to get the tuning right... and there's really no other way to do that than take it for a drive and record the results. I drove west of my street into the more "rural" part of the village. My car, less one muffler was making quite a bit of noise. Well, I turned down a residential road (which paralleled the main road) en route back to my house to make some more adjustments. The same road which Old Man Withers lives on. Going no faster than 20mph the old drunk rockets up from his lounge chair, comfortably positioned on the porch of his modular home and makes a dead sprint for the road. As I drive passed he screams "YEWWW SHHHLOOWW THE F*** DUUUOOOWWN!" while shaking his fists at me. Preparing for his alcoholic fiesta he had already taken his cowboy hat and shoes off.
Let's get this straight... I never broke the law. In fact, I never went above the 30mph speed limit on the main road nor the 25mph speed limit in the residential area. It doesn't take a genius to look at my crappy car coming down the road and see that I am not speeding... I mean seriously. I was practically crawling down this street. The only thing I can think that set this hammered old man off was the noise coming from my car. This drunk dink was totally enraged simply by the sound of my car. He acted not knowing any other part of the story other than the information supplied by his defeated and vain sense of hearing.
As the befuddled old man got smaller in my rear view mirror, the thought crossed my mind to go back there and ask him what the crap his problem was? I really wanted to find out what was so wrong about my driving through his neighborhood. I wanted to see the plastered look on his face when I told him I was only going 20mph and that if he had a problem with that then he could call the police and that here was my plate number... at which point I remember that my plates were expired and my insurance had lapsed. Those were really the only laws I broke.
I have developed a theory.
This old man... who had recently taken three sheets to the wind was more than likely a retired farmer who's license had been revoked due to too many DUI's. Why else would a 75 year old arthritic cowboy walk into town 3 times a day returning with another bottle of elixir? This feeble form of vigilante justice exists only to make himself feel important in his boring, glazed existence. After loosing his privilege to drive, he feels a need to take out his ever growing anger on anyone who would dare shake up a quiet neighborhood with a apocalyptically ferocious 20mph fly by in a riced out Jetta.
I guess the old saying let sleeping dogs lie or... let juiced cowboys lie has a ring of truth to it. After all, the man has seen 6 BIG wars, the effects of the great depression, the rise and fall of communism, hitler/nazis and worst of all... George W. Bush. With that in mind, perhaps this old man has a right to be angry and ornery? Hell... even I would probably take up drinking after George W. Bush! But... after all... it WAS my fault for driving down his street. If I had taken 750 south instead, this poor public display of lunacy would have never happened. Cest la vie.
http://www.aa.org/
UPDATE: 5/13/09
A picture of the old man.
