The Porsche

I noticed the sleek, gleeming, fire engine red, unblemished Porche 911 while looking for a convenient parking spot. I pulled in, and as I got out of the car, the Porche caught my eye again. (It was by far the nicest car in view.) There it was: a fine automobile that, if bought used, would cost from $60k to $80k. With the Porche in the foreground, the passing high-speed freeway traffic beyond looked intolerably slow. It would have made for a fine picture in the morning sun if only the car just beyond it didn’t spoil the view with its huge, cheap, unpainted, aftermarket, aluminum spoiler. From where I stood, it almost looked like the spoiler was on the Porsche. Oh. Wait. The spoiler was on the Porsche. A primo condition, late model, looks-fast-standing-still car worth $60k+. With a $300 aftermarket spoiler bolted on to it.

Some kid got the car from Daddy or Granddad. His friends all got Kias or Hyundais, maybe Pontiacs or even Nissans, all decked out with spoilers of one sort or the other. So, oblivious to what he had—the proverbial pearl before swine—he looked with envy at his buddies econo-cars. And bolted on his own aftermarket spoiler. In one deft stroke, he spent a mere $300 and an hour of his time. To reduce the value of his car by $10k. To reduce the “cool” factor of his car by at a factor of ten.

I never before had a desire to torch an automobile. But I could hear it screaming….not around corners in a thrilling high-speed run, but in anguish. I wanted to put it out of its misery. Even dismemberment in a chop shop would be better than leaving it as it stood.

Maybe I was on the cusp of a psychotic break. It is true that I was hearing the cries of an inanimate object. But when an icon of exhilaration, speed, performance, quality, wealth, virility, and the American idea of the open road is defaced (or dare I say desecrated?) with the automotive equivalent of graffiti on the Mona Lisa or a rub-on AC/DC tattoo on Michelangelo’s David, might not the instinctive objection of the collective unconscious of western civilization register as an automobile’s anguish? Nonetheless, I turned and walked away, vaguely uneasy with my decision to ignore the Porche.

My business took me to the same parking lot the next day. The Porsche was gone, perhaps for good. Maybe, just maybe, someone else had not just walked away. I could only hope.