Skoda 120l & i

   
   
A Skoda 120l.  It wasn't so much that the car was bad, it was i who was bad.    
   
It drove pretty well, engine in the back, fairly easy to fix, could even tighten the hand brake from inside the car by opening a panel between the back seats.  Well, after a few months things started breaking down a bit, as they do and i didn't bother with the tough stuff, just did enough to keep it running.  Winter came and i was still on my Yul Brynner tires, but nah, too expensive to buy new ones and i was a really good driver, or so i believed.  
i wasn't happy with how it was running and kept fiddling with the thingy that adjusts the timing on the whatchamacallit but never got it right until in a fit of rage i adjusted it to where it refused to be and i forced it with threats to run.  It sounded like a Sherman tank roaring down the roads for a few days but finally it gave in and ran like a purring pussy cat.  At the yearly required car inspection i was told by a bemused mechanic that i had broken the record of lowest exhaust output of something or other, but i remember the number, 0.02.  i promised to get new tires.  i lied.  
   
The battery was weak at best in summer so winter did it no favors.  i got to know every fellow in the neighborhood who owned starter cables, some would speed off when seeing me coming.  Luckily i lived on a hill, so that took care of some mornings.  The windshield wipers gave out, so i adjusted and learned to see the world through rain drops.  When it snowed i had a side window and an arm.  Now things started getting serious, the brakes were giving out, but i still had a handbrake, until i didn't.  i began teaching myself to plan traffic movements for miles ahead and gearing down to stop the car, kinda and shortly thereafter i broke the first gear to bits and then i broke the reverse gear into bits and for some strange reason the third gear also broke to bits.  Luckily it was the snowiest winter in ages, so i started using snow banks on the side of the road for emergency stops.  
   
Alas, the day arrived when it refused any further movement and so a friend of mine pulled me to the junkyard to offer it to them, but after looking the Skoda and me over a few times with a grimace they refused to take it.  We came back in the evening and left it on their driveway.  
   
Kinda miss that car, it had character.