All Rileyed Up

Lately, The Boy has been watching a cheaply made Peter Pan-brand DVD called Little Cars. It is, for all intents and purposes, a complete rip off of Pixar’s Cars. What’s extra funny to me is the fact that the name of the company that makes the videos is called Peter Pan. It’s like they’re just rubbing Disney’s face in it that they’re getting away with it.

We’ve been watching a lot of Little Cars because I lent Pixar’s Cars to my brother-in-law, Auto Man. He is so named because he is a car aficionado, which is why I was excited to lend him Pixar’s Cars because I knew how much he would enjoy it. When I first met Auto Man, he was the boyfriend of my then-boyfriend-now-Husband’s sister, Mary Kay, so named because those are her initials. One of the first things I remember Auto Man saying to me, when he saw me pull up in a Toyota pickup, was “I can lower your car for you” and Mary Kay said (in that sigh voice that girlfriends often use with boyfriends), “She doesn’t need you to do that.” I was a little taken aback, because I didn’t know him at all, so I didn’t know what he was getting at, suggesting he could lower it. Was he weird? Was he making fun of my car? Was he making fun of me?

As it turned out, he was just really into cars. Since I have known him, he has belonged to a car club, raced in legal street races, and showed his truck at car shows. He himself drove his own lowered truck—with hydraulics of course—and my Toyota pickup happened to be the same model as his first car.

Inspired by his love of cars, here is a list of Ten Things You Won’t Hear From the Mouths of Car Aficionados:

1. There is such a thing as too low.
2. Gone in 60 Seconds sucked.
3. No, I haven’t seen that new model car. What’s it look like?
4. No one will notice that scratch.
5. Yes, I’d love to go through the gas station car wash.
6. I hate waxing.
7. That woman in the bikini does nothing to enhance the photo of that car.
8. Sure, you can drive my car!
9. Hybrids rock.
10. I just use the standard sound system that came with my car.

And now, for any of you who may be wondering what Auto Man’s car looked like, here’s a clip that I think does it justice:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oLSX3pKZ8o]

How ya like that, baby?