Stupid Toyota Tricks

The shuffle feature of my iTunes reminded me this morning of a game I used to play with myself driving from Washington to Baltimore in college called "Fell in Love With a Girl," named after the White Stripes song of the same name. When I had an internship in D.C., I did the trip at least twice a week, plus one or two more runs for concerts and such.

Here's how it works: Around the intersection of northbound I-95 and the Baltimore Beltway (I-695), there's a sign marking 2 1/2 miles to the 395 interchange for Downtown/MLK Boulevard. One fine day in late 2001, the song in question came on the radio exactly as I passed the sign. Driving like the maniac I was at the time, I made it to the 395 exit just as the song ended, braking furiously as I rounded the overpass (the exit is right after the above sign). From then on, I kept White Blood Cells in my glove compartment and queued it up around BWI, assuming that there wasn't much traffic. Assuming no troopers by the 2 1/2 mile sign, I usually made it by passing, bobbing, weaving and otherwise doing things with a 16-year-old Japanese station wagon that it was not designed to do.

It wasn't until today that I calculated how fast I was going. Assuming the distance on the sign was correct, to get there in the 1:50 playing time of the song, I would have to average 83.3 miles per hour. That doesn't seem like much on an interstate, but it sure felt fast when every piece of metal and plastic on the car rattled like they wanted to break free of the bolts that bound them together so many years before in some pristine factory in Yokohama.

I've also clocked a 15-minute run between the D.C. and Baltimore Beltways after a bad date, which, given the 23-mile distance meant I was averaging 92 miles per hour. During the two years between the time I got it from my Dad and the day it got hauled off to the Kidney Foundation after failing a state inspection, I maxed it out at 110 (once again on Interstate 95). It was if the darn thing was invisible to radar and I was impervious to reason. Years have passed and I have a much nicer car that is capable of far greater feats of juvenile derring-do, but I now never drive more than 10 over the speed limit. Maybe I'm grown up. Maybe the traffic in Chicago is worse. But still, I wouldn't mind playing "Fell in Love With a Girl" one more time.