SPRAYQUEST — An epic tale 

Following is the story of my quest to bring the Spraymobile (aka the Spray) home. My relationship with the Spray began in winter 2007. As with any epic quest, Sprayquest includes tragedy, success, even auguries spoken by prophets. 

When I first entered the hallowed halls of Climbing, I was told the magazine had a special company car — a 1999 Ford Explorer with full-color murals of a man climbing airbrushed (or sprayed, if you will) onto the door panels. “Wow,” I said. I was told I could use the vehicle, if I so chose. “Uhm… Sure,” I said. Next, my co-workers told me not to get mixed up with the Spray. Like Oedipus, when told he’d kill his father and sleep with his mother, I ignored the warnings. I got involved with the Spray and immediately things began to go wrong. 

The first minor issue was the broken driver-side door handle: it forced one to enter through the passenger-side and then scrabble over the center console to achieve the captain’s chair. No biggie. Next, I realized that the wiper fluid reservoir ran dry quicker than a dog’s bladder, leaving the windshield smeary and impenetrable (and thus creating an amazing safety hazard) under the salty winter-road spray. Again, easily remedied — a cache of wiper fluid jugs rolls around the back of the Spray to ensure there’s always a squirt available. More seriously, the traction in two-wheel-drive mode is severely lacking: while driving to the office after an ice storm one day, I failed to engage the on-the-fly four-wheel-drive. While changing lanes at modest speed, the vehicle began to move in a diagonal and then sideways fashion. While sliding forward in slow-moving traffic, I watched the Spray’s nose swing within inches of another truck’s tail before swinging back the other way and then stopping on the road’s shoulder. I sat for a moment to let some of the urine evaporate from my pants, clicked the Spray into maximo-traction mode, and pulled back onto the road. 

Strangely, the real problems came when I no longer used the Spray, and left it parked in front of the office, on the street, for an extended period of time. 

For weeks, nothing happened. Each day, rosy-fingered dawn would rise, the sun would cut its arc, and the clear mountain night would descend, all without word of trouble. Then, an orange blaze appeared on the Spray, beneath the wiper arm. “Abandoned,” the ticket declared. Apparently, the registration of the Spray had lapsed some time ago… a year ago, in fact, which fact I’d failed to note. The ticket declared failure to move the Spray would result in towing. So I moved the Spray across the street. Three days later I returned to find the Spray gone. “Stolen!” I cried, but then thought back to the ticket. Towed. Thus Sprayquest began.