The Used People Lot
BY IRVING FANG
Faint car never won fair lady!...
Make your car proud of you!...
Grinning Gregory helps used people!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's had it. Finished. Done. My wonderful red Thunderflash, I thought to myself, isn't worth the electricity to atomize it to Kingdom Come.
Ever since that drunk in his two-seat Charioteer plowed into the rear end with such force that even my radar repellant couldn't stop it, my Thunderflash had been out of kilter. The specialists my garage recommended worked over it for two days, but couldn't get it to running the way it did new.
And what was I supposed to do for an automobile now? I had signed the customary 40-year pact for half my salary to pay for it. That meant I would still be shelling out by 2117.
Weeping over it wasn't going to do any good. It was stuck on the fifth level expressway and that was that. I levered myself out (at least the ejector still worked) then got behind the car and gave it a good old-fashioned push to get it on an off-ramp, out of the stream of traffic.