DEFEND YOUR RIDE: Chris At Warner Brothers Studios

Q: Can you tell us about this customization job you have going on here?

A: Really, it started off kind of slowly. It probably started a few years ago when I let my kids paint the car. I gave them a bunch of tempera paint and said, "Go wild, do whatever you want." They and their friends had a blast. Then it kind of grew: an occasional bumper sticker on the back, then more bumper stickers. We found this plastic skull one day and glued that on the back. At that point, I thought why not start gluing things on other places? I think I had a real breakthrough moment when I realized that the car basically has no resale value. Once you realize your car has no resale value, it's a very liberating thing.

Q: Where's the tempera paint?

A: That long came off. At that point early in the car's metamorphosis, I didn't want anything to be permanent, so the tempera paint would just wash off when we'd go through the carwash. Obviously, as you can see, it's been a long time since I've gone through a carwash.

Q: How long have you owned this car?

A: Fifteen years. I bought it just barely used, maybe about 10,000 miles on it. The goal is to get to 240,000, the distance from the earth to the moon.

Q: Which one's your favorite?

A: I'm a big fan of Bender, the robot from Futurama. So right now, we have one...two...three and a half Benders on the car. I had as many as a half dozen or so, and would probably put more on as I get them. There is a little bit of cost involved. You know, each one of these is a little toy that you have to go buy somewhere. In a perfect world, I would cover the car. You would not be able to see the car. But that would be thousands of dollars.

Q: What sort of reactions do you get from others when you're driving it?

A: It's great to take it someplace like a Home Depot. It's perfect. You also get a great reaction from kids. It's great to drive past a school when school is letting out, and a six year-old sees this, and just stops dead in his tracks. That's wonderful. I get a mixed bag with adults, with grownups. You know, every now and then, maybe like one grownup out of ten who passes me on the road or pulls up next to me at an intersection, will wave or give me a thumbs up. Most just kind of look and then look away. Once in awhile, about once every month or two, I'll have someone who will pull up next to me and just start to yell, as if somehow the car has angered and upset them. It's very strange.

Q: What do they say to you?

A: It's like, "Why the hell did you do that? What is wrong with you?" I mean, really? It just strikes them on some sort of visceral level that they're almost kind of offended by it. I think it says a lot about that person.

Q: It certainly says more about them than anything about you.

A: Yeah, maybe they had very bad potty training or something. It's very strange.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about your very creative car?

A: It's continued to plug along. You know, like anyone who owns an old car, each time something breaks, you go, oh, is this the time when we throw yet more money at it, or is this the time when we finally chuck it in? So far, I'm delighted to say, we've always made the decision to keep it going a little longer.