On Beige Ford Tauruses, Carcinogenic Summer Jobs and the Impending At the Drive-In Reunion
In the summer of 1999, at the age of 16, I got a job working at the vehicle emissions testing station in Racine, Wisconsin. Wisconsin, like many states, requires that all licensed vehicles be tested for emissions every few years and for a couple of months, I was paid minimum wage to stand behind cars and collect noxious petrochemical fumes with a rubber hose. I soon fell in with a co-worker named Charlie, a spindly, dark-haired kid who played drums in a local hardcore band and sported a Black Flag tattoo on his right arm. Charlie drove a beige, late ’80s Ford Taurus that always seemed on the verge of collapse—whenever he drove the car on the highway, it was the duty of whoever was riding shotgun to hold the dashboard in place so that it wouldn’t detach at high speeds. That summer, Charlie and I wiled away many an afternoon chatting about music while pretending to mop the breakroom and it was during one of these sessions that I asked him what the single sticker on his bumper—a rectangular, sky blue piece of vinyl with the words “at.the.drive.in” printed on it—meant. He explained that upon first purchasing the car, he had decided to honor only one band by affixing their sticker to his Taurus and since there was no such thing as a Fugazi sticker, At the Drive-In had been chosen for the prestigious spot.
