The Point of No Return

Over the past four years, the Pig has been subject to a hearty portion of all of the jokes I've heard in high school. Whether from the mouths of students, or Mr. Bundy poking fun at his own possession, it just never stopped. The day that will live in infamy was the last day of this year's (2007) band camp. Greg and I were standing up next to the press box overlooking the field, and more importantly, the parking lot. There were only a handful of cars in the lot, seeing as only the strangest of the strange show up in the school parking lot during their summer vacation. As we were standing there and overlooking this great spectacle, a passion awoke within me. I turned to Greg and said, "You know what we have to do?". After pausing a minute to think, he asked me what I was talking about. "We need to paint Mr. Bundy's car.", "Yes we do." Our fates were sealed.

We took a minute to discuss our game plan and how we would approach Mr. Bundy about our great scheme. Having a mild idea of what we were going to say and probably a little too much confidence, we searched him out on the other side of the press box. From the instant we finished our proposal he was all over it. We had expected to have to do some convincing, but we encountered nothing but agreement and encouragement. Also, during our conversation, Jason overheard us and volunteered his services for the good of the cause.

A few weeks later, I realized that our project was never even going to get started if I didn't start pestering Mr Bundy. After a few days we all agreed to meet during lunch and start to get a game plan agreed upon. As the four of us talked we all started to get pretty excited about the whole project, but we realized it would take a good amount of time. We ended up agreeing upon the notion of attacking the beast one piece at a time. This would allow Mr. Bundy to continue to drive the car and us the freedom to do the work as we found time. Thus we decided that our first target would be the back right door.

On Thursday 9/20 we removed the target door and deposited it in my dad's garage. There it sat until Sunday 9/23. Greg found his way over to my dad's house at about 1:30pm, and we headed out to Home Depot. Once there, we picked up two hand sanding tools and 35 sheets of sandpaper of varying grit ratings. To be completely honest, we had no idea what we were doing. We had both done a little research online to find the best ways to go about such a project, but reading alone isn't much of a confidence inspiring tool.

We returned to my house armed to the teeth, ready to do battle with the portion of the Pig. It was quite the formidable opponent, as we soon found. An hour and some change passed, and we nearly had all of the green paint sanded from the lower portion of the door. At this point we decided to head out to the local Baxter's to pick up some primer and a tarp to paint on, because they were going to be closing relatively shortly. When we got back from that errand, Jason was at my house waiting for us. The three of us continued sanding, working our way up the door. Blake showed up soon after and took up a sheet of sandpaper as service to his country. An hour later, Blake headed home and the three of us remaining began taping off the chrome pieces and window, anything we didn't want to get primer all over. I took a quick trip over to the Dollar Tree to pick up some rubbing alcohol while Greg and Jason finished up the taping.

After I returned we set to cleaning the door of all the particle remnants. With our rubbing alcohol and paper towels, we wiped all of the sanded surfaces until they were beautiful. This was where we all started to get a little bit nervous. None of us had ever primed anything, let alone a car door. We weren't even sure if we had picked out primer that would work for what we wanted it to. Never the less we spread the tarp out in the driveway and laid the door on it and went to town covering ever last inch in rattle can primer. After we were satisfied with the results, we called it a day and started cleaning up the garage. When everything was said and done, it was about 6pm, so it took us about four and a half hours (including trips for supplies) to go from what was to what will be.

I untaped everything later that evening, but the door remained in the garage until Tuesday 9/25, when we reattached it to the Pig after our marching band practice. It was a glorious moment. We laughed, we cried, and we laughed some more. After this Saturday's (9/29) competition we plan to remove the opposite door, and start all over again. Viva la France!