"What's Up, Bonneville?"

Ted and I have this joke about Pontiac Bonnevilles. See, that's been his main ride for years, a white, four door mid-nineties issue that is all formality and no flash. A vehicle that may or may not be missing some paint, or a fully functioning cup holder, or a side-view mirror. A car that, what it lacks in the glitz and glamour department, it more than makes up for in faded window decals curling up at the corners. But for us, a car need not be fancy, it just has to get you to your intended destination in a timely manner, so we drive around with no thought given to the matter of vehicular appearances. To a point.

A phenomenon that I've noticed is that whenever we're driving some place, we will inevitably see another Bonneville cruising past us, also in the color white, and Ted will tip his imaginary hat in an act of solidarity and casually murmur, 'What's up, Bonneville?' He can be in mid-sentence, telling me a completely unrelated story about the Cy Young contenders, but the acknowledgement that we are in the presence of a virtually identical, mid-level American made automobile cannot go unmentioned. I had never noticed the abundance of Bonnevilles out on the road until we started dating and going for rides.

(God, how American Graffiti was that last sentence? Maybe I'll see Harrison Ford again at Mel's tonight, too.)

Anyhoo, this afternoon, just as the last streaks of sunlight were slipping away, I was half a block away from my home when I encountered THIS:

One of the things I love about my neighborhood is that every once in a while a random classic car will just fall from the sky and hang out on the curb for a day or two. And if I'm lucky, I can whip out my iPhone and snap some photos.

Interestingly enough, when I first saw this Queen of the Bonnevilles, I didn't immediately think of Ted. I though of my friend Kelly from college. One day we were walking to class and strolled past this absolutely giant, tank-like shiny classic car parked up against the curb. It was not a Bonneville, but it was impressively massive. "Wow," I remember saying to Kelly, "People could live in that car!" Kelly immediately corrected me and said, "People should be having sex in that car."

It wouldn't take much to have sex in that Bonneville, I suppose. I mean, it is a convertible. Jump on in! It's a no-brainer, really.