It’s been a long time since I owned a car in Seattle. Sure, I used to live in Port Orchard. In fact, I lived there for five or so years. Then, as we know, I lost all my senses and moved to Florida for another eight.
As such, it’s been 13 years since I’ve had to do the car tab renewal thing in Seattle. If you live in the area you know the drill. Every other year you have to get an emissions test. It doesn’t matter if you live in Snohomish, King or Pierce counties. Emission tests are required.
They’re not required in Florida. This was a good thing since Vanna, my car there, probably couldn’t pass an emissions test, unless the goal of the test was to hit the highest amount of emissions possible. Then it would pass with flying colors.
The Black Widow, on the other hand, was raised in Florida. As you may remember, I was thrilled when the Widow made it over Steven’s Pass last year. That is the first time it had ever been on a mountain road, or even on a road with a big hill on it. There are no hills in Florida, which is such a pity because the Florida would be much prettier if you suddenly popped out of a wooded hillside and set your sights on the Gulf or the Atlantic.
But I digress. Being painfully aware of the emissions rules here, I actually tried to get my car tested when it first arrived. I had to get a Washington State plate and figured that they would require an emissions test for that privilege, especially with an out of state car. They didn’t. By the luck of the draw my car wouldn’t need one for a year, the plate number being as odd as the car’s driver.
A year passed very quickly. I recently realized that it was time to renew my tabs. Only this time I needed the emissions test. Now, the Black Widow isn’t in the best of shape. First, it’s a Saturn and the company long ago went out of business. Plus, as we all know, I don’t like cars, so doing such routine things as getting a tune-up doesn’t really occur to me. I just keep driving and driving until it screams so loud at me that it needs some love that I have no choice but to take it in.
As you can imagine, I wasn’t very hopeful that the Widow would pass the emissions test here. As usual, I went straight to the worst case scenarios, that the car wouldn’t pass, that I’d have to take it to one of those places that work their magic to make it temporarily pass, and that I would return home several hundred dollars poorer.
This doomsday scenario was made worse because the official state website said you should ideally drive your car for 15 miles on the freeway to get it optimally warmed up. I couldn’t exactly do this at 8 in the morning in Seattle. It would take me an hour to go those 15 miles.
Instead, I tooled down Aurora Avenue. The testing station is along Hooker Row, so I turned left, just behind the third prostitute heading south. I pulled in, took my ticket and waited to be told the bad news.
The attendant entered my VIN number (whatever the hell that is) and then noticed my license plate – PYRATES. “You’re a pirate?” she said. “A Seafair Pirate?” I admitted to having been one once, then briefly explained my history of being a rogue and traveling the world as a pirate, capping it all off by saying that it was far better than being a clown, since clowns can’t drink in public, kiss all the women, and say outrageous things, at least not without doing some jail time.
Things went amazingly smooth. They’ve really gotten this process down since I last had to do an emissions test, waiting in an interminable line of cars, sucking down vast quantities of fumes, and paying for the privilege to do it.
It did throw me off a bit, having to get out of the car. I was initially confused, not remembering this part. She had some kind of connector she wanted to put on the car. I thought I would be an instant “FAIL” at this point, as I broke off the car hood latch some time ago and don’t know how to put it back on. Thankfully, the little doohickey connector thing goes on the interior of the car, not the engine compartment, which, after years of thorough study, I am 89% sure is somewhere in the front of the car.
After some more finagling on her part, she checked the computer once more. And then she said the words to me that is as sweet as the first time I heard “I love you.” She said, “You passed.”
I thanked her profusely for this badge of validation. I hopped back into the Black Widow and headed off into the sunset. Well, not exactly. I actually headed up Aurora again, thrilled that I wouldn’t have to take my car to Rick’s Mufflers, Tailpipes and Car Tweaking, which stands proudly at the entrance of the emissions testing station.
The Widow didn’t let me down. Even though her previous owner (the ex) was blowing a lot of smoke and fuming every chance she got, the car seems to be a clean running eco-machine, happy to be in Washington State.
At least for now. I will pass judgment on this again in two years, when the Widow, then a decade old, is scheduled to return to the emissions station. Who knows, by then maybe I will be standing on the deck of a sailboat, sailing off into the sunset instead of pulling in past a happy hooker on Aurora Avenue.
Hey, I can dream.
In the Emerald City, passing my own emissions after eating at Taco Time,
– Robb