My Car Don’t Have No Manly Horn

I was sitting at the intersection of 1st street and 5th avenue west in Duluth waiting for the stop sign to turn green. I had just dropped my wife off for work and was headed to work in CubicleLand and my thoughts were apparently in a galaxy far far away. I suddenly heard the car behind me honk its horn and I was pulled back to reality and realized then that the stop sign wasn’t going to turn green (or any color for that matter). I proceeded through the intersection like I knew exactly what I was doing and eventually made it to work.


When the car behind me honked its horn, it’s then that I thought, “Wow, I hope my car horn doesn’t sound like that!”

But it does.

My car don’t have no manly horn.

I have an older Chevy S-10 pickup and that horn sounds fine. But my wife’s car is the one we usually drive to and from work each day. It’s a Hyundai Elantra.

And as the commercial instructs, it’s pronounced “Hyundai like Sunday.” It’s not “high-yun-die” or “hi-ya-yippe-ki-yeah!” or “hey-you-lookin-at-me?” It’s just “Hyundai like Sunday.”

And “Elantra” is French for “I may not be a Honda, but at least I’m not a Yugo.”

The other day we were stopped behind one other car at a stop light where our neighborhood street (44th avenue) meets the main business district street (Grand Avenue). We turn left so we always have to wait for the light. And it’s usually about a half an hour before we get the green light so I eat breakfast and Kay puts on her make-up. When the person in the car in front of us started to creep out into the intersection while the light was still red (she obviously finished her pancakes and sausage), I knew immediately what she was going to do – SHE WAS PLANNING ON TURNING LEFT ONTO A TWO WAY BUSY STREET ON A RED LIGHT!

Kay and I both just sat aghast at such brazen and anti-societal behavior.

But I was ready for her.

Shaking off my aghastness (and after giving my bowl of Wheaties to Kay), I honked the horn with determination.

It sounded just like the horn on my trike when I was three, or like a deathly-ill Road Runner cartoon figure. It was obviously Hyundai like Sunday’s attempt at imitating Tiny Tim’s falsetto voice.

I wanted it to sound like the horn that went off when those monster Mar’s machines came up out of the earth on “War of the Worlds.” (Where Tom Cruise and his family ran for their lives while people around them turned to baking powder). Or I so wanted it to sound like, you know, a Kenworth or a Peterbuilt or a Mack Truck. Or maybe something like the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge horn. Now THAT’S a horn.

But it was just a sickly “bep.” Not even loud enough or scary enough for me to add the second "e" to beep.

It obviously didn’t scare her because she just kept right on going. And I think I saw her laughing! (By the way, if I tried that, even though you couldn’t see any law enforcement vehicles for miles, as soon as I got out into the intersection a SWAT helicopter would be swooping down on me.)

And before I finish, on that “me-waiting-for-the-stop-sign-to-change-colors” thing. A few years back I stopped for a stop sign where no stop sign was! The one that marked the intersection of 40th and 6th got moved to 40th and 8th. But one day on my way home from work (while I was day dreaming) I just stopped at the corner of 40th and 6th. 40th Avenue West is a real busy street and for whatever reason the guy behind me didn’t like it that I had stopped where no stop sign was! Go figure. He just zoomed around me like I was some kind of an idiot.

I’ll never figure out why some drivers get so mad at me.