urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:obishawn The trials and tribulations of building, owning, and driving a Star Wars Car obishawn 2038-01-19T03:14:07Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:obishawn:5854 2038-01-19T03:14:07Z 2038-01-19T03:14:07Z ..the fool, or the fool that calls him one?<br /><br />Whilst driving to Griffith Observatory via the 10 freeway last week, some kids took advantage of the tragically slow traffic to examine the H-Wing. They were aboard what we call "the short bus", those tiny transports usually reserved for tots political correctness has dubbed "developmentally disabled"; we used to call them "retarded". At the charity events I do, they are called "differently-abled".<br /><br />Most of the kids were excited to see the car, waving and calling out the windows. Their speech difficulties identified them pretty solidly in the "differently-abled" category. But they were having a great time, yelling at R2 and generally upsetting their bus driver.<br /><br />As traffic began to speed up, and I finally passed the front of the bus, I heard the following from the window just behind the driver's seat:<br /><br />"DUDE! Your car is totally retarded!"<br /><br />It was called out with the slurred voice of authority, and I got the feeling that I had just been dissed by the coolest kid on the short bus, who won a bloodless coup and showed how much cooler he was than I amongst his peers.<br /><br />I had a smile on my face all day knowing that, among the short bus crowd, I was in the short <em><strong>car</strong></em>.