The Story of the Stable Sable and the Bumper Hullabaloo

Pick-N-Pull

Betsy looked like the Terminator.

My poor car (the aforementioned Betsy) has needed bumpers for months. The back one was smashed when someone backed into me, and the front one shattered when I skidded on some ice in an 8mph crash earlier this winter.

The Sable just like mine!

Taking the bumper off

My friend Nick and my roommate, Ann, decided to help me with the bumper situation, so we all went to Pick-N-Pull—which is basically a glorified junk yard. It was a magnificent thing. Hundreds of cars stood all in rows, grouped by manufacturer. After walking around for a while through what we weren’t aware was the GM section, we finally discovered the Fords. That was when I found it.

My car: a white, ’95 Mercury Sable with a pristine front bumper. The clouds opened up, and sun shone down on it in a halo of heavenly light. Angels sang the Hallelujah Chorus. It was beautiful.

Carrying the front bumper

Ladies and gents, I’ve never been under a car before, but there I was, right next to Nick, under the car, wrench in hand, trying to loosen the bolts so that we could take that bumper for Betsy. We took a lot of pictures. This might never happen again. Do you have any idea of how filthy you can get when laying on gravel? Also, I learned that I can sweat from places I didn’t even know had sweat glands.

By the end of the morning, we had two bumpers (took the other one from a green ’94 Taurus) and a spare tire, all for $160!! SUCCESS!!!

As the three of us joyfully lugged the bumpers, spare tire, and two full tool boxes back to the car…it was then that we realized…we had no idea how we were going to get all of this (and ourselves) home. None of us had a truck, so we had driven over in my little Sable.

We began the world’s biggest game of Tetris.

Finally, we managed to get both bumpers in the car, as well as all of us…even if one of the bumpers hung out the window a bit…

Ann + Nick in the back of the car with the bumpers

Everything was going so well…we thought. I had high hopes that my car was FINALLY going to be okay. I had just gotten a new battery in the car the day before (because the car had a bad habit of dying and needing to be jumped), and now Betsy was going to be pretty and in one piece. Yes. Things were looking up.

Then it happened. We dropped the bumpers off at Nick’s house, and were headed out to get some lunch when the car died. Again. Just like she had been doing for months, before I put the new battery in. *Insert expletives here* The bad thing was that she died as I was waiting at a stop sign. There was a truck behind me…and I couldn’t get her started.

Nick befuddled as to what's wrong

Instantly, Nick threw the car into neutral, yelled “step on the brake!” and jumped out of the car. Before I knew it, he was pushing the car, and the truck behind us was backing up. My roommate also jumped out to help him, and even in my frightened state, I did manage to turn the wheel and maneuver the car into a safe place out of the way.

Nick and Ann kept their cool pretty well as Nick looked under the hood, trying to figure out what was wrong. I laid against the side of the car and cried out to God. “Why, God!? WHY?!?!” Car still did not start.

Pushing the car...

More pushing ensued. Nick seemed to be enjoying it immensely. Ann sang Air Force running songs. I felt guilty that I wasn’t pushing. About half way back to Nick’s house (thankfully, we never left the neighborhood), I told them to stop so that I could try to start the car again. She started. SUCCESS! But…the blinkers and flashers wouldn’t work. NOT SUCCESS.

Safety first

We then went to lunch, where I drowned my depression in two sausage links, two slices of bacon, two slices of ham, hash browns, scrambled eggs, and two pancakes…and ate every single bite of it. Nick and Ann were impressed with my eating skills. Nick tried to help me figure out if I could change my finances around a bit and somehow get a little more money out (optimistically for a new car), but he came to the same conclusion I did: Nope.

Painting the bumper

The following day, Nick and I worked on the green Taurus bumper. The paint had to be stripped before we could paint it white to match my car. I don’t even want to go into the pain and agony it was to strip all of that paint off. OH MY GOSH. NO. The first paint stripper we used was too gentle, that it only got some of it off. It was during a trip to Wal-Mart that we discovered the stripper that we knew needed to be in our lives: the one that was literally eating its way out of the can.

Putting the bumper on

We took the radioactive substance back to Nick’s house and used it on the bumper. It worked like a dream, but left the bumper covered in what can only be described as black “Flubber.” There was much scraping, sanding, and hosing it down. But eventually, we got it back to looking like a bumper.

Then I primed it. And painted it. Two coats. So much heat. So much sun. Not enough water. My head ached. It still aches today as I’m writing this.

When I was finished, I went to see what Nick was up to. And together, he and I put the new front bumper on the car. More time spent on the ground, under the car, loosening bolts. I was thankful to be there, though. It was cooler under the car. 

By the end of the day, the car had two new bumpers. I was hot, tired, and thanking God that Ann came over with cold Gatorade. The shower water turned gray when it hit my body, but it didn’t matter. We had gotten my car’s body fixed up, and she looks fantastic. It might have been the hardest work I’ve ever done outside of a ballet studio, but it was worth it. 

Finished bumper...and Nick's legs

New front bumper!