While I have come to understand a great deal about HH during our time together, one thing that I will never understand is his extreme infatuation with motor vehicles.
I am certain that HH has spent more time talking about his truck during our relationship than has doing anything else. Checking his oil is a weekly priority, he is constantly changing the flashlight that is kept in my car, and sometimes we just have to talk about how everyone is jealous of his truck.
Gay men want a certain body; a friend once told me about his quest for large shoulders and a small waist. HH's priorities lie in his horsepower, not in his measurements. I am often asked what my car's horsepower is as if I can remember (I don't even know my dad's house phone number thanks to my cell phone.) I am expected to know what my tire pressure is at any given time. I am also quizzed on such things as hemis and cold air intake. Although HH seems to know a lot about cars, when my engine was recently clicking and my AC not cooling properly, he wanted me to just wait until next summer even though a simple can of freon was the answer (which I had taken care of on my own.). Once, however, after he installed something that was supposed to give him more power and it was making a funny noise, we had to pull over every ten minutes to listen better.
So while he quizzes me on my car, his truck is his oxygen. We can be in the middle of a conversation and he will walk out into the garage to look at it without warning. My car must be driven to any place or event that is deemed to have any possibility of car theft or damage. Before we got married, HH promised me a few things: he would cut the grass (which he usually does), he would clean up dog waste (we no longer have a dog), and he would make sure that my car always had an oil change and gas. I have gotten zero oil changes out of him, despite my complaints that the guy at the oil change place is creepy and he took my car to fill it up...once. Whether this was all a lie or he is simply too busy looking at his truck, I have yet to figure it out.
Unfortunately, his obsession goes beyond his own vehicle. On vacation, we often end up places looking at cars; I can say that I have seen the General Lee at a "museum" in Gatlinburg, TN. While in Vegas, I spent two days arguing against renting some sports car and just last weekend, we ended up at some boat race at the lake where I was forced to identify engine parts. Earlier in the summer, we went to a baseball game for "camera day". We got there much too late to even dream about getting on the field to get pictures of/with players so we headed to the club which overlooks the highway. The next hour or so was spent taking pictures of various cars and, as though it was a modern marvel, tractor trailers passing by. He would time it to get the right angle, make sure you could read the truck, etc. Yet, if I take a picture of, say a gorgeous flower in another country, I am insane and wasting a picture.
I don't know what I would prefer for HH to be obsessed with. Of course, I appreciate that he can at least keep cars running (arguably.) But would I prefer being quizzed on how to get a smaller waist?
