PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

One of my favorite patches is the one that says “I SURVIVED THE GREAT 2020 TOILET PAPER CRISIS”…

 

Also, since this is also supposed to be a thread about living with Aspergers Syndrome and other autism spectrum disorders, I’ll just come right out and say it…

Some guys with high-functioning autism who aren’t virgins don’t like going down on a woman; I am not one of those guys, and I surprise even myself because for example I don’t like eating strawberries because of the texture, but I gladly go down on my girlfriend. I surprised myself the first time I did it!

 

I know guys with Aspergers who are really promiscuous and will stick it in anything with a pulse, and I know guys (and girls) with Aspergers who are in their 30s and still virgins. There’s a reason they call it a spectrum!

 

Also, on another note, being in close quarters with someone else who’s on the spectrum can lead to very interesting conflicts and disagreements…

 

For example, the girl who farted in my truck on the first date (she was an Aspie) freaked out on another date when there was a thunderstorm approaching and I refused to roll up the windows…

It was a pleasant summer night, and it was cool enough to have the windows down; There was thunder and lightning in the distance, but no rain.

My girlfriend asked me to put the windows up and I said no, because it was nice out. She promptly threw a fit; I was forced to roll up the windows and turn on the A/C to appease her, all because she was scared of a storm that was still miles away!

 

Fart on max AC, that’ll throw her for a loop. Make it an SBD. I suggest a cheesy Gordita crunch about 2.35 hours before your date.

 

The A/C was on and the windows were up when she farted back in 2013!

 

Amen to that, and I was born there!

 

I did tell the guy at the ticket booth what happened and said that maybe their security guards should do some research into how a limited-slip differential works before going “Karen” on innocent spectators; Got an apology for the guard’s behavior…

 

@ColoradoTJ

I still do not fully understand why I've been so obsessed with pre-1996 Chrysler minivans, for over a year now! I think the fact I spent a decent portion of my childhood in them has something to do with it, along with the fact that the pre-1996 models were everywhere less than 20 years years, but have now all but vanished...

I was shocked when I spotted this amazingly clean 1995 model sitting outside the Trans Shop in Doylestown while driving around yesterday, and the childhood memories came flooding back when I realized it was virtually identical to the one my aunt and uncle in California used to have!

 

This is a 1995 Dodge Grand Caravan SE (I ran the license plate through Carfax); My aunt and uncle had a 1994 model, but it was the same exact van right down to the chrome wheel covers...

 

Appearance-wise, this van is identical to the one my aunt and uncle had for ten years; If I'd seen this van in a parking lot about 25 years while shopping with my aunt, I'd walked up to it and tried to open the door...

 

I have discussed my aunt and uncle's van in this thread many times before; On the outside, this van is identical to the one they had. However, my aunt and uncle's van did not have power windows, and it also did not have rear A/C. A quick glance through the window of this one revealed that it had power windows and rear A/C!

 

My aunt and uncle ordered their van rather than buy it off the lot; The biggest thing they wanted was the "quad command" seating, which gave you second row bucket seats. My cousins were about 10 and 13 years of age at the time, and as siblings (in this case two sisters) tend to do, they fought on long drives; My aunt and uncle hoped that giving them their own seats would help put an end to this, and it did! When my dad got transferred to Moffett Field in 1996, and we moved back to California, the van was only 2 years old. At the time, my parents had a 1990 Toyota Camry LE and a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder SE, both of which had power windows; I remember riding in the van for the first time and finding it strange that a 1994 minivan did not have power windows. It had power mirrors, and it may have had power locks, but it had crank windows; My uncle told me years later that the reason he'd gotten manual windows is because he'd previously had a vehicle with power windows that gave him nothing but trouble, and he wanted windows that wouldn't get stuck up or down. Every new vehicle he and my aunt have purchased from 1999 onward has had power windows.

 

My aunt and uncle wanted a van with just the stuff they needed and nothing more; I have a 1994 Dodge Caravan brochure, and from what I can tell, the three most significant options their van DID NOT have were...

1. Power windows
2. Rear A/C and heat
3. Infinity speakers

 

It had A/C (front only), cruise control, tilt wheel, power mirrors, and a 4-speaker AM/FM cassette; My uncle says he opted to not get the rear A/C because it was not a cheap option and they weren't exactly flush with cash at the time. Front A/C came standard with the option package they chose, and since they live in Northern California where it rarely gets above 75 degrees they figured they would be fine with just the front A/C; They quickly regretted their cost-cutting decision the first time they drove the van to Texas to visit family!

The A/C worked, but in really hot weather it struggled to keep the rear passengers comfortable; Regardless, that 1994 Grand Caravan was a very solid vehicle. They had it for ten years, buying it new in 1994 and selling it in 2004; I'm pretty sure that it was pushing 100K before Y2K came around. The transmission was replaced under a manufacturer recall in 1995, but that van was otherwise reliable. They lived in California, remember; California is obnoxiously strict when it comes to regulating vehicle emissions! That van NEVER failed a smog test!

At least one of my cousin's took her driver's test in that van, and as stated above I spent a lot of time in that van during the period of 1996 to 1998!

 

One time in about 1997, the van developed some off sort of electrical problem; Keep in mind that this was a 1994 Dodge Grand Caravan, so it would have been only three years old at the time, and not even paid off yet!

It was dark out, and my aunt, my cousin, and I were driving to some sort of thing at their church; The slightest bump or jolt would cause the van to have the electrical equivalent of a hissy fit. The door chime would sound repeatedly, the dome light would turn on and off, and the lights on the dash would dim; I was sitting in the right side second row bucket seat, and I can remember looking at the digital clock on the radio. It was this cool green color, and it would dim; I don't think we had the radio on, so I don't know if the radio was affected...

These electrical problems had apparently been going on for a little while prior to this particular time when I was riding in the van, and my uncle who was usually a whiz at this kind of thing hadn't been able to find the problem; The van was only three years old and could have still been under warranty, but with the amount of miles my aunt and uncle put on it, the bumper-to-bumper warranty was probably expired by then. I was only 8 years old at the time, and I thought it was the funniest thing; I immediately dubbed my aunt's minivan "The Haunted Caravan". They did get the problem the fixed a short time later, but the name stuck; My aunt is now almost 70 years old and a grandmother of three kids. The "Haunted Caravan" was sold over 17 years ago; However, we still laugh about that night to this very day!

 

Other issues with that 1994 Grand Caravan that manifested themselves over the years included a rearview mirror (mounted to the windshield) that fell off on at least three different occasions, an air-conditioner that to be charged at least once, and wheel covers that liked to fall off...

By 2002, the Haunted Caravan had El Cheapo Plastico wheel covers instead of the cool chrome ones it came with (seen on the 1995 model I photographed yesterday); The last time I rode in the Haunted Caravan was in either 2003 or 2004 when we my parents and were living in Fairfax County, Virginia. My other aunt and uncle, and their kids, also lived in Fairfax County at the time. My aunt and uncle had driven across the country in the Haunted Caravan, rather than flying, to visit us; My uncle was a helicopter pilot in the Army, and flew 747 freighters for Southern Air for something like 25 years. He loved flying if he was the one in the cockpit, but to this day he does not like flying commercial for reasons too numerous to list! If he can avoid being a passenger on a commercial flight, he does! He and my aunt prefer pulling his vintage 1969 Airstream behind their Dodge Ram and driving across the country rather than flying...

Anyway, my aunt and uncle had their eyes on a Honda Element from the moment they came out; In 2004, the A/C in the Haunted Caravan shit the bed. With 180K on the clock, they decided it would be more cost effective to buy a new vehicle than to repair the A/C in the van. They bought a brand new Honda Element that same year and had it for something like 12 years!