Christine!

For awhile now I have been hearing nothing but good comments about the movie "Little Miss Sunshine." It was up for all of those awards and I think it actually got one (I don't actually know as I don't watch the award shows. Mostly cuz I really don't care one way or the other.) Well I finally got it from Netflix last week and just could not stop laughing. And I'm not talking about the chuckle kind of laugh where you just shake your head and do your uummmm hhhhmmmmmm's. I'm talking about a full fledged belly laugh that you have to pause the movie so you don't pee your pants.

The movie is about an extremely dysfunctional family that has to get their daughter to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California. They live 700 miles away. The question of transportation arises and they settle on driving the family's old beat up VW van. They eventually make it to the pageant in the nick of time.

Now being the kind of person that was raised in a family that constantly had car issues, I could appreciate what the family went through. Mostly cuz I went through the same situation. I can't say that the clutch exactly went out on my mint green 1980 Honda Accord but the starter was involved.

My best friend Jody and I were in Christine. At this point I was calling the car Christine cuz I had just finished reading Stephen King's novel "Christine" and I swear, this car knew when pay day was. She knew exactly, right down to the very minute, when the MacDonald's paycheck was deposited into the bank. Cuz at that exact moment, she would decide to not work. And she would continue to not work until I spent at least a hundred bucks on her. God I loved that car!

Anyway Jody and I and Chrisine were going through Wendy's drive through late in the evening during middle of winter. All we ordered was the blizzard we were craving all day. We pulled up to the window and this is when Christine decided that she needed attention. Of course she died and would not start no matter how much I swore at her and turned the key. Jody is laughing with hysterics which causes me to start laughing hysterically. Meanwhile cars behind me are blasting their horns. Jody suggests to jump start the car. So she gets out and starts pushing while I'm holding the clutch down and praying my "Hail Mary's." Christine realizes she better start co-operating and we get enough speed going to pop the clutch. She starts to purr as if nothing at all happened. Of course I can't stop the car and Jody has to make a run for it! Finally she gets into the passenger seat in the nick of time before the Wendy's drive way ends and I'm forced to go out onto the busy street. We laughed all the way home. Payday was the next day and Christine promptly received her usual hundred bucks!