Socio-Automotive Retardation – How Long Can We Ignore It?

All American males have life-long affairs with cars (so-called auto-eroticism), starting usually in their early teens. Many even transcend the foreplay of driving on to the ecstasy of getting under the hood and seeing how a car really works. It seems to be an established ritual of male evolvement, this affair d'auto, and those few who somehow miss out on it often suffer from a most painfully humiliating condition that might best be described as a sort of socio-automotive retardation.

I, having been raised by a mother and grandmother, neither of whom could drive, am a salient example of a socio-automotive retardate. I didn't learn to drive until I was 19 and didn't get a driver's license till I was 26. This condition never affected my overall social development that much, since most all of my friends had cars, but my relationship to one of the American male's most powerful symbols of virility was scarred permanently. Other than realizing the practicality of having one, and aesthetically preferring Jaguars to Hyundais, to this day I have very little interest in cars.

During my days as a double-dating demon, I was frequently forced to feign interest to avoid the geek label by interjecting a timely "really," when a guy told me he had "two four-barrel carburetors" or "four on the floor." And I was no doubt dangerously close to a state hospital scholarship when I pretended to take long studied looks at other cars we drove. I had noticed that "normal guys" would crane their necks to gawk at certain cars as they were driving. I pitifully never knew the criteria for this long distance scrutinizing, so I had to wait for somebody else's move to cue on. In retrospect, I wonder if any or—Oh, God—all of them were on to me: "Hey, I faked that goofball Bob into starting at a Henry J. today." "That's nothing, I told him I had '15 on the floor' and he said you know what." The group, loudly, "Really!" (Singgering and horse-like guffaws.)

I never did learn to relate to other guys on a socio-automotive level, and fortunately, though, while all my friends were more automotively knowledgeable than I, their interests did not extend to the mechanical level. In fact, we used to make fun of those whom we thought possessed a somewhat excessive interest in this aspect of cars, and I reveled in this ridicule, as it tended to rebuild my crumbling self-esteem. Our favorite form of automotive parody was to drive to a local drive-in restaurant, which was frequented by hot rodder types, pull into a parking space while revving the engine, then jump out of the car, sleeves rolled shoulder-high, sometimes covering a pack of Luckies, open the hood, and commence staring and pointing under it, while making loud exclamations such as, "Oh yeah, she'd loaded!", "Man, this baby can really move!" Naturally, the grand finale of this performance would have been a curiosity inspired visit by some of the car freaks, but fortunately for us this never occurred (perhaps, we smugly thought, because they were too dull-witted to recognize a skillfully acted lampoon when they saw one; but, in retrospect, considering our "drag monster" was a Ford Country Squire station wagon, we were probably the unknown object of a reverse snub.)

My most horrendous socio-automotive trauma—possibly a punishment for the above—was a brief summer (briefer than summer) job as a service station attendant when I was about 17 or 18. When I wasn't stumbling through my menial pumping-gas-checking-under-the-hood-windshield-cleaning duties, I was lunching with my automotive superiors—journeymen mechanics, mechanic's helpers, and professional service station attendants. I may as well have been an Albanian immigrant. The only words I occasionally deciphered were prepositions. The only subject they discussed ("disgust" might be better) other than cars was sex, and specifically, boasting about the most intimate details of their relationships with their wives and girlfriends: "Boy, when I get home tonight, I'm gonna crack some ceiling plaster!" These people gave S&M a bad name. Until then, I hadn't realized that I was a bit retarded in this area too, but that's a whole other article, perhaps even a book.

That was a very confusing and unhappy six weeks for me, and, although I did become quite proficient with a dipstick (Hey, maybe that's why the station owner called me that), my more innate ability of unconsciously collecting people's gas caps leg me to my ultimate dismissal. In the clarity of hindsight, I view this moment in my life as a blown opportunity to achieve socio-automotive normalcy, despite the probable side effect of sexual aberrance.

I have paid emotionally (I experience no orgasmic tingling at the thought of a stock car race or even a 1950 Ford with a Confederate Flag decal) and literally (I am personally responsible for the extraordinary financial success of a number of automotive mechanics and the college education of their offspring) for this developmental flaw. I am, in fact, permanently damaged and beyond rehabilitation; however, it is my unselfish hope that this public admission will give others the courage to come out of the closet, when they see that they are not alone.

With my luck, though, I am probably the only male in America with this problem, and the sole response to my confession will be a hate letter from Peewee Herman, calling me an insufferable wimp and a disgrace to all self-respecting real American nerds.

Nevertheless, I will not be stopped. My draconian years of socio-automotive deprivation have only tempered my resolve to see that other males enjoy the inalienable American rites of auto-eroticism and the secondary benefits thereof.

What is needed, I feel, is a leader, a high profile role model. Someone who can do what Robert Redford is doing for the environment, what Cliff Robertson does for AT&T, what Jim Bakker did to confirm the accuracy of P.T. Barnum's most famous adage. We need someone associated with cars, someone who can get the message across to the fathers of young boys all across this great nation that drives more cars and builds more highways than all the rest of the world combined that while a boy who knows women is a lover, a boy who knows cars is a man.

Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, all you guys from The Dukes of Hazard, there's the gauntlet.