The Used Car

Me Grandpa Joe smoked. A lot. He paid for it in more ways than one.

On a road trip years ago, he flicked a cigarette butt out of his window as he drove. Unfortunately the window behind the driver's seat was rolled down. The smoldering butt flew through the opening and set the back seat on fire. Before Joe could do anything about that except pull over and, I think, retrieve his luggage, the car was in flames. A total loss.

Yet he still needed to get home. As luck would have it he wasn't very far away from a junk yard. Joe ambled in to see if they might have anything, anything at all, which was drivable.

The proprietor offered him an old vehicle of some sort which was absolutely deplorable even by Joe standards. It barely ran, and the rusted hulk of a body was held together by willpower and the grace of God. The tires were well blanched and balding rubber. Onionskins, Joe would call such tires (he had drove on enough of them). As me Grandpa listened to it valiantly try to continue running he asked, "What do you want for it?"

"Fifty bucks," came the reply. "And it goes up every time you open your mouth."

Joe paid him fifty dollars and got home with his newfound, uh, treasure.