The Lemon

​I had purchased a new car in 1980 that according to all of the experts was the best and most reliable car on the market but from the moment that I purchased it and drove it out of the lot it was nothing but a headache and a series of mechanical problems. The car that I had purchased was a 1980 Ford Thunderbird Silver Anniversary Edition. I remember driving it off the lot and after about ten minutes of driving I stopped at a red light and noticed that the temperature gauge was running high. Seconds later I smelled something burning and a few seconds after that smoke started to pour out from under the hood. I turned off the ignition and open the hood. The radiator thermostat was broken or more likely it had been suspiciously crushed. I towed it back to the dealership where they wouldn't pay the towing charges and I had to wait a week to get it fixed. 

​A week later I had my car back and for a couple of days it seemed to be running fine until I noticed that the steering wheel kept getting tighter and tighter to the point that I could not turn the wheel. I managed to get the car home and had a look under the hood and the hose that led to power steering had been cut. But this was not a manufactures problem, the hose had been cut intentionally. That was now twice that there had been, what I would call suspicious or intentional damage done to the car. I thought back to when I had purchased the car and I recalled having a bit of an argument with one of the mechanics because he was smoking and having his lunch in my car. I asked him to clean out the ashtray but he wouldn't do it. I remember that just before I drove away in my new car that he was fidgeting with something under the hood and he grinned at me as he handed me the keys. 

I decided to not take the car back to the dealership and fix it myself. It took a bit of elbow grease but I was able to figure it out and fix the power steering hose. Two days later I was driving away from my house to go the work when I heard a rattling noise coming from the back of my car. I stopped immediately and got out to take a look and laying on the ground was a rusted out muffler, but I had only had the car for less than a month. I wondered how this was possible. I took the car to a muffler shop and the mechanic said he had never seen anything like it. He fixed it for a ridiculous amount of money and I headed home. Over the next two weeks the plaguing car problems continued so I decided to finally sell the car for a dirt cheap price. I had only one inquiry from an older man who collected cars. I handed him the keys and the car wouldn't start as the tailpipe on the exhaust seemed to be clogged. He shut off the car and I could hear someone coughing under the car. I looked and there was nothing there. The two of us proceeded to take off the tailpipe and to see what was blocking it. We were horrified to find that the blockage from the tailpipe was in fact a gremlin. The gremlin looked at us and gave us a fiendish smile.