Corvette

by Eleanor Lippman

Yes, I admit it. Once upon a time I owned and drove around town in a red Corvette convertible with the biggest, baddest, most powerful engine. It was my high energy ‘baby’ and I spent many hours washing it and polishing its chrome. I loved the throaty roar of the engine when I started her up in the garage and the feeling of power as I slowly backed out into the driveway on the way to whatever shenanigans I planned for the day.

Eleanor’s 1965 Corvette

One of the two or three driving tickets I ever received in my entire lifetime was a result of a disagreement between a young and arrogant police officer and me driving the red Corvette convertible. The encounter happened on a moonless night as we both approached a dark intersection coming from opposite directions. We both stopped at the stop sign and I clearly felt I had arrived at the intersection well ahead of the other driver. Turn signal on, I turned left in front of the pair of headlights, the only thing visible in the blackness. Within seconds, I could hear the police siren and knew I was being pulled over. Those headlights in the dark, of course, were those of a police car. Nailed. Ticket. The first and only ticket driving the Corvette. Maybe it was Corvette arrogance that made me think I had the right of way. Maybe the officer had not fulfilled his quota of tickets for his shift. Maybe he did not like seeing a young female driving a powerful sport car. Or, maybe I was wrong, and driving the Corvette made me feel powerful, feeling as if Corvette and I had the right of way on the road.

I learned my lesson and Corvette and I drove more carefully ever after.

Among the memorial things I remember about my years driving the Corvette include what I call the “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” ride.

If you don’t remember or haven’t ever seen the film, it is about two drag-queens (male) and a transsexual entertainer (male) who end up together in a bus crossing the Australian outback. To earn money along the way, they stage performances in the small towns they pass through. They lip synch to popular songs, wear outlandish costumes, and squabble among themselves.

“Priscilla”

The scene I remember best is the bus, fitted with one of their stage props, a huge high heeled lady’s pump that serves as a chair secured to the roof top. During one of their many petty spats, one of them settles into the bus top chair/high heeled pump while wearing a costume with delicate flowing sleeves and long train. The movie shows the bus crossing a very dusty and empty desert landscape, shoe on top, along with a seated performer with the parts of his costume lazily streaming and flowing in the wind as the bus moves on. All the while, he is singing (lip singing) opera with the volume as loud as can be. Hard to forget!

My “Priscilla” event involved packing peanuts. A very large box was delivered to my front door containing one small item and mostly puffy plastic packing peanuts. Those peanuts were a nightmare to deal with because when they moved around, they generated static electricity and would stick to anything and everything. The easiest way to deal with them was to pull out the item that was shipped and quickly seal up the box and leave it and its peanut contents for trash collection. For the record, any attempt to remove the peanuts from the packing box would just result in a peanut decorated area and peanuts stuck to whatever clothing you were wearing.

At the time, I had an artist friend who loved creating three dimensional pieces out of unusual materials. She wanted my box of packing peanuts and I was happy to hand them off to her. So I secured the box behind the seat of the Corvette, hopped on the freeway and drove along the deserted road on a glorious spring Sunday afternoon toward her studio.

You can probably imagine what happened. Without my being aware, the wind currents created by driving the convertible at high speed along freeway were picking up one by one the peanuts sitting in the box and streaming them in a wavering cloud behind me as I drove. As I neared the freeway exit, I became aware something was amiss. As soon as I could, I pulled over and turned to check the box.

Inside, was a single packing peanut that did not have the energy to escape with its buddies. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert came to mind. It must have been some sight that I created. Too bad I never saw it.

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