When Achieving a Childhood Dream Goes Wrong
Inside me there are two wolves. And they're both idiots.
2003 was a great year to be a dumbass. Fortunately for me I was a 12, and all 12-year-olds are dumbasses.
Jackass had broken cultural contain and MTV gave it two spinoffs, Viva La Bam and the under-appreciated Wildboyz, starring its most rambunctious dumbasses. It was also on MTV that I first saw Blink 182’s Feeling This music video, which portrayed a bunch of rowdy students rebelling against repressive school administrators. I became certain it was a preview of what high school would be like.
2003 was an especially great year to be a dumbass skater. Never mind the three classic videos we got that year (The DC Video, Yeah Right and This is Skateboarding), 2003 also gave us Grind and Tony Hawk’s Underground, a movie and video game that had the same plot: watch a dumbass skater and his friends try to go pro. Just as I expected high school to look like a Blink video, I also started thinking hey, maybe I could be a pro skateboarder, too.
But it was another one-two movie-video game punch from 2003 that hit me hardest: 2 Fast 2 Furious and Need For Speed Underground.
I’d seen Eclipses, Civics, even the occasional S2000 on the street, but none that looked like the alien cars in 2F2F and NFSU with their graphics, neon StreetGlow and nitrous purge kits. The other day I saw an Evo VII and involuntarily grunted, a reminder that part of me still wants to drive something that looks and sounds like Brian Conner’s Eclipse or Skyline.
A few years went by and I got my license and a VW Jetta. I loved that car, even though driving it made me the punchline to a joke on national television.
I began spending way too much time on VWvortex, one of the most idiosyncratic forums on the internet where no car is ever low enough. I did every DIY mod that Vortex had a tutorial for: cold air intake install, logo blackout, strut bar install. If it was cheap and my buddy Ben and I could do it in his parents’ driveway, we would.
This was a time when much of my identity was tied to being not quite like everyone else, and even though my Jetta wasn’t even close to the kind of cars I was able to cook up in NFSU, at least it looked different from the other Jettas in my high school’s parking lot. Most little boys find firetrucks and excavators to be the coolest things on the planet, and sometimes those boys grow into teenagers that shift their gaze to other machines that make noise and go fast. I was one of them. I was a car guy.
By the time I hit my mid 20s, I hadn’t messed with my car in years. When I was broke and in college, I swore I’d do as the Vortex populi demanded and lower my Jetta, maybe throw on a diverter valve and short shifter. But I didn’t. I’d grown out of it. I began to see cars as tools, not toys, so when my Jetta died, I bought a sensible Honda and moved on.
But then, at the end of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 2024, I found myself in the market for a car. It’s no secret that shopping for a car has sucked for a few years now, and I had a week and a tight budget to buy one. From the moment the other guy’s insurance gave me a rental, the clock was ticking. I began searching for Fits, Civics, and the occasional Impreza.
Then the dumbass within me, the same guy I’d kept suppressed for 10+ years, snuck out. He reminded me that I used to ogle MK6 GTIs in college, back when they were the hot new thing among VW enthusiasts. He pointed out that they’re now within my budget, and that being in that weird club of VW owners was actually pretty fun.
So when I found a 2012 GTI in my area, I immediately fell under its spell. The plaid interior, the red accents, the way it’d put my dumbass into the seat when the turbo kicked in. I couldn’t resist. I bought it partially because I had to, but also because I REALLY REALLY WANTED TO.
What I hadn’t considered was that GTIs are basically sports cars with a hatchback. Their engines are oversized and overpowered, and there’s a general rule of thumb that once Volkswagens hit 100,000 miles, they begin to have expensive mood swings. I also didn’t even bother looking up its fuel economy before I bought it, because hey, it’s a small, light car, how bad could it be? Less than 20 mpg bad, that’s how bad.
The fuel economy, receipts for 93 octane fuel, and a pair of surprise $700+ trips to the shop later, I said uncle. As fun as the GTI was, and boy was it fun, it was simply not suited to my needs. I needed a tool, not a toy.
I sold it and bought a Scion iM, which is basically a GTI except it is A) manufactured by Toyota, B) able to get 30+ mpg in the city on regular gas, and C) slow as molasses. It’s been delightful.
It was nice to be reminded that I’m not a car guy, but I’m also not not a car guy, at least right now. The GTI’s bottle had all the poison warning skulls on the label, but I drank it anyway. It was too tempting.
It’s helpful to know that if the day comes when I have the appetite and means to buy the Evo VIII I’ve dreamed about for 22 years, there will be a great battle within me, and I will probably end up going for it. I can only keep the dumbass within me in a headlock for so long.