March 19 2017
purpose,” snorted Antoinette.
She had been irritated by a man in front of her who continually switched lanes just when Antoinette wished to do so. Seeing the offending car dart in front of her for the nth time, Antoinette directed Jennifer to attack. Jennifer ran up its rear with her formidable front bumper, much to the horror of Cedric, a guest of ours at the time.
Antoinette and the other driver did their verbal duel standing at the confluence of the two cars, while Cedric white-knuckled the passenger-seat handgrip.
The Italian poured scorn on the hapless Cedric. “Your man doesn’t even have the courage to defend his own driving and sends his woman out for him instead!”
Antoinette’s riposte was sharp and delicious, “And you don’t even have the sense to realise that the steering wheel is not on his side of the car!”
With that she flounced back to the wheel and drove off, fully expecting a summons to arrive. Nothing did.
On one occasion, Antoinette was trying to swing out of her parking spot at the supermarket and Jennifer didn’t seem to respond that well to the usual flat-footed accelerator thrust. In the rearview mirror, Antoinette spotted a Fiat 500 hitching a ride on Jennifer’s back bumper. A quick shoe shuffle with a little reverse and the clinch was broken, leaving the Fiat in a new parking spot but improving Jennifer’s performance considerably.
The time eventually arrived for us to depart from Rome in circumstances that made it impractical for Jennifer to come along. That final morning, the mechanic who had worked on her over the years came to collect her for scrap. We bade our farewells and waved sadly until she slowly sailed out of view, proudly flaunting the marks of her various encounters while her perky exhausts gave us the “up yours”.
We retired to the nearest bar and ordered two espressos “corrected” with grappa. Moist-eyed, Antoinette and I raised our cups in solemn tribute to our Jennifer, the meanest little Beetle in the West. — Roland Darroll
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