Pimp My MacBookPro

My dad hates when I refer to my childhood neighborhood as ghetto. He also hates when I say my family was poor. However, just because he hates it, doesn’t make it any less true. Don’t get me wrong, I loved growing up where I did—government issued lunches at the community pool, door-to-door vendors selling everything from tamales to finger puppets, state-funded home improvement loans at no interest. There were perks. But the drive-by shootings at the local carnival also left a sour taste.

Despite the bleak environment, there were spots of beauty speckled across the city—like God held out a paintbrush and flicked His wrist, as if inspired by Jackson Pollack. On Sunday afternoons, cars would cruise a main boulevard and the drivers, sitting so low in their seats one could barely see their pupils above the steering wheel, would cast askance glances to see who was looking. These cars—otherwise known as ‘low-riders’—were basically outdated automobiles with new glitter-infused paint jobs, gold-plated 17-inch rims, and hydraulics that could cause the Richter scale to reach 4.2. With music blaring loudly enough to be almost inaudible to everyone but dogs, the cars would cruise at a walking pace, with their gold-plated car club name swaying from side-to-side from a spring mounted on the back window.

Oddly, as a child I found this spectacle to be beautiful. Strangely beautiful. Often times, I’d hear drivers refer to their cars as ‘pimped-out rides’. The notion of reinventing something old has been embedded in my mind like sedimentary rock over thousands of years. The ironic thing is that I never thought I’d ‘pimp-out’ anything, but, alas, the time has come…

A dear mentor sold me his MacBookPro for a great price a couple weeks ago and today I metaphorically cruised the Internet highway for some ‘pimped-out’ gear. I felt like I was a kid in a candy shop ordering my new DVD burner, internal hard drive, external hard drive, battery, and USB port. I’m telling you, the only thing I’m missing is dice in my mirror.

Who would have thought that God’s speckled beauty from childhood would replay itself years later in electronic form?! ☺