However, his wife was not terribly pleased by the idea of him mucking up her lovely station wagon, so he went to a vehicle auction and purchased the murder van.
Now, it's never actually been used for murder (as far as we know), but that's totally what it was designed for. I mean look at it. It's nicely decomissioned from the parks department, with that potentially pedophilic bent, it's a stunning shade of green, with half-hearted tags and a nice dent along the side, just to prove what it's made of.
(And in case you're wondering what it's actually made of, I think the answer is metal, rubber, string, tape, a coffee cup lid, two paper towels, a carpet (for style) and magic. Oh, and oil. Lots of oil.)
Anyway, my parents were getting rid of an armoire, and they offered it to my friend, so I rode with him in the murder van to pick it up all the way out to CT. Which, in retrospect, was something of a miracle, considering that, unbeknownst to us, the good old murder van was down two quarts of transmission fluid.
Let me give you an impression of riding in the murder van. First, go to a seedy hotel room. Throw all sorts of things around, including a buckeye, three computer speakers, some tools, dust and whatever else suits your fancy. Start up your Magic Fingers bed and then swap the bed for a race-car seat. Pump in some carbon monoxide, hire sixteen toddlers to rattle pots and pans and get an angry, lone cricket to play incessantly for two hours. Multiply that by a hundred, and you're close.
On the ride up, I think I might have been high. I'm pretty sure the following things were said:
friend: Murder Van loves Tom Waits.
me: Totally understandable.
friend: Murder Van loves Madonna.
me: Can we open the windows a little more?
me: How much did this cost you?
friend: $600. And I didn't even have to pay extra to get the entire cast of Stomp into the back!
me: Why is that thing so long?
me: Why is that thing so long?
friend: Well, it has to reach all the way inside.
(You dirty birds! I was talking about the oil dipstick and he was talking about the engine. Maybe you've had too many fumes!)
Anyway, there's not much of a plot to this story, except that we got in the van, drove into a time warp, were plied with an armoire, dried fruit, a kitchen table and a bag of artichokes, and then we drove home.
The punchline: the door on my side opened really well, but only shut when my friend wiggled something and stood on his left foot singing Madonna songs. Needless to say, any time I wanted to get out, I had to clamber out of my race-car seat, hop over the driver's seat, and tumble out into the driveway or parking space. The maneuver alone was enough to send me into hysterics, but landing next to the murder van? Icing on the cake.
Murder van loves transmission fluid:
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