The Tow

So my favorite daughter Alisha (and only daughter) bet me $5 that I would have at least ten people honk at me as I towed the DeLorean eight hundred or so miles South for our over-Winter in California, and I readily took the bet thinking that my poor hearing would immunize me from financial loss. Well, I was wrong and Alisha was up five bucks before she contributed it back into the petrol fund.

What transpired during the tow was the filming of at least ten feature length films of a DeLorean under tow, with the various “crews” even taking to the road shoulder to capture the proper angle. Of course this often led to the camera vehicle camping out in my blind spot for prolonged periods and extra diligence on my part to make sure I did not squash these trespassers and end up being the star of films titled roughly “The last moments in the life of John Smith as he captures irrelevant images of car on a trailer.” Several times I was almost scraped off onto the road shoulder as my lane ended and the film crew failed to recognize my need to merge, with the blinker and hand signals indicating my urgent intention. There are laws on the books making it illegal to talk or text on a cell phone while driving, but none that I am aware of specifically targeting picture taking. Legislators listen up – this is your chance to make an indelible mark on society.

As I crossed into California and stopped at the agricultural inspection station I was asked “Sir, do you have any vegetables or plants with you and, by the way, the fellow in front of you really likes your car.” This was from a vehicle that was trying to force me into the truck inspection lane until I pounced on the brakes and swung in abruptly behind him.

Mostly what I noticed as I checked my rear views every few seconds to keep from pan-caking mostly little foreign cars of dubious parentage (i.e., non-British) were a thousand phone photos being snapped, and many thumbs up as they accelerated past my tow limited speed of roughly, cough, cough, 55 MPH. There were so many smiles directed at my road numbed, drivers side silhouette that I began to think that the scenery alternatives must be extremely bleak. But I suppose that if a stainless steel vehicle can make people happier, without killing them, and that the internet postings of thousands of blurry pictures of my D-car are not a burden on the servers of the internet, then that is OK. Alternatively, next time, I can either throw a sheet over it like some military transporter of classified equipment, or set up my own movie camera on board the DeLorean to capture my own entries into the YouTube world of interesting stuff people do.