Car Stereo

[Martin Hash]

My oldest son, Heath, gave me some belated advice recently. "Dad," he began solemnly, "Never take a Ferrari into a custom car stereo place and say, 'Put in something nice.'"

...

It all began when I heard a radio advertisement about "Car Toys anniversary... so all installations are free!" That's my kind of price so I took my car in, parking in front.

"Can I help you?" asked the salesman.

"Yeah, I heard your ad about free installation."

"Not for you," he replied, smiling.

I thought he was kidding. That was when I made my fateful request. He told me it would take a couple of days.

Back at the office I told Marshall about it. He was a little apprehensive.

"He could run the bill up on you," warned Marshall.

"How bad do you think?"

"Maybe 500 bucks... maybe even a thousand."

"A thousand bucks!"

"It's a Ferrari, man."

"But a thousand bucks!"

I sweated out the next couple of days before I called.

"It's going to be a few more days."

"What?"

"We're making it really nice."

My hand was shaking when I hung up the phone. It's gonna be a thousand bucks, I thought to myself. How much could they do? There's not even room in the car for a glove compartment. There's no trunk, and no room in the back. The car is basically an engine with a body squeezed over it. In fact, people over 5'10" can't even fit into the passenger seat. What could possibly take a week to install?

…

It was finally the big day. Marshall and I went to pick up the car. I had resigned myself to shelling out a thousand bucks. My car was parked in the car stereo place's front window to attract attention. I took a deep breath and walked in.

Everyone was smiles. Every employee in the store came over to shake my hand.

"Congratulations. This is the finest installation we've ever done."

It was like they'd had a new baby, they were so proud. My skin was itching as they brought over the bill. I opened the folded paper slowly, peeking at the bottom line…

Six thousand dollars!!!!!

Immediately stunned, from that point on I was a zombie. Docile, they led me to the car, trumpeting their stereo prowess. First, they explained. I could turn on the stereo while standing 10 feet from the car by pressing a button on a keyed remote. The new electric antenna would automatically raise. Another button caused the doors to unlatch and pop open. Soundproofing had been layered under the carpeting and inside the doors. The CD player could be remotely programmed to display the names of each CD installed and a track name. A big aluminum-ribbed amplifier was crafted behind the driver's seat; two amps for the custom door speakers and two more for the newly created and crafted headline speakers now located behind the headrests. Behind the passenger's seat was another big dual amplifier and crossover for the new base units mounted under the leg wells. They assured me that even with the top down and going 100 mph, I could hear the high notes in "Stairway to Heaven".

After settling me in the driver’s seat, they all waved and smiled enthusiastically as Marshall and I drove out of the parking lot. Neither Marshall nor I had spoken through the whole ordeal.

Finally, after we'd gotten out onto the freeway and headed back to the office, Marshall said, "Maybe you should turn it on."