Stupidity

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my lifetime.  For some reason I was thinking about one particular example last night.

During my first marriage I picked up another 69 Firebird convertible. Unlike my original Hugger Orange beauty , this car needed work, a lot of it.  The biggest problem was rust on the body which was so severe it would not pass state inspection.  I had ideas of fixing the problems myself but I had neither the expertise or money to do it so the car more or less sat in the driveway of our Wernersville townhouse for months on end.

One day I came up with what I thought was a bright idea.  I would simply make my own inspection “sticker”!  I grabbed some tracing paper and placed it on the windshield on top of the sticker of one of our legal vehicles. I carefully traced the outline of the sticker and then took it inside to color it in with crayon.  I cut it out and then affixed it to the inside of the windshield with scotch tape. 

I took a few steps back and admired my forgery.  My thinking was my homemade sticker would look real enough at 40mph if I drove by a cop on the road, I should be good to go!  I actually took the car out on the road a few times without incident.  I thought I really had found a way to beat the system. How stupid.

Ironically I wasn’t the one that took the fall for the fake sticker, at least not directly.  One weekend when I was away doing an install for Meridian Bank my ex-wife decided she would take the Firebird out for a joyride with one of her “friends”.  Well she got pulled over.  She was read the riot act and we were slapped with a huge $300 and change fine.  The cop said he could have arrested her since it was a blatant forgery. 

At the time, I felt bad that my ex-wife took the fall for my stupidity.  In retrospect it was only a small part of the payback she deserved for the bullshit she pulled throughout our marriage.

Anyway, after the incident I discarded any ideas of ever getting the car restored under my ownership.  I sold it shortly thereafter for what I paid for it.  The new owner drove the Firebird away, sans sticker.