Guys and Cars

In this episode of The Gripe, Stitch and Rick dive into the stories that live behind the wheel. Long drives, crank windows, fading FM stations, quiet wives, and the strange new world of screens, apps, and self‑driving cars. It’s a nostalgic ride through the days when driving felt simple, human, and full of personality. From childhood memories to modern frustrations, this conversation blends humor, heart, and the kind of generational storytelling that makes you remember your own “good old days.”

If you love classic cars, road‑trip memories, or just miss the feeling of rolling the windows down and letting life drift by, this episode is for you. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Welcome to THE GRIPE!

And don't forget to check out my other Podcast "Yammerin' with Stitch Mainville" which can be found on all your favorite podcast platforms!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Gripe with your hosts Stitch Mainville and Rick Garrett. You know, there's something special about cars that turns every man into a storyteller. Not because of the engines or the gadgets, but because of the memories baked into every mile. In this episode of The Gripe, we settle into the passenger seat and drift through long drives, quiet wives, cranked windows, fading radio stations, and a strange new world of screens, apps, and self-driving dreams. It's warm, funny, and familiar. Kind of conversation that reminds you of how much life happens behind a windshield. So buckle up, relax, and ride along as we talk about the way driving used to feel in the way it feels now. 15 seconds before you noticed it. Yeah, wives, wives are funny. And the fact that you now when you sit in a car with Marie for a long trip, there's no issues there? You guys don't have a you don't have a problem? No, because she's quiet most of the time. Well, I don't pay no attention to the radio unless I'm listening to sports. So she has that serious, you know, the stand-up stand-up type stuff. So she she I she listens to all her music while we're rolling. Some of it I like, some of it I can ignore, or whatever. I'm just concentrating on driving and she's gonna be able to do it. She don't bother me. Once in a while, we'll talk about something. But driving, I don't feel, takes a whole lot of my thought process. So to keep me alert, to keep me alive, I I I want Nay or whoever's in the passenger seat to keep me engaged, talk to me. Okay. Now, here's what Nay will do. She'll sit on her game and she'll play her game. And I'll be talking, and she'll be like, mm-hmm. That's that's my conversation I had with her. But then she'll do this. She'll take her ear things. She's got these ones that go around her ears and just sort of sit here. Yeah, yeah. And she'll put those in and then put on a movie. Oh, and watch a movie. And watch a movie. Now you can't talk to her dad at all. So I'm like, okay, well, you're not tired. It's not like you want to sleep and you can't talk. You just don't want to engage. And I take that. And then I'm traveling like this. I'm getting mad. I turn my radio up and I start singing along karaoke music and stuff. And she'll take the thing off. She's like, what are you doing? Keeping myself entertained. There you go. Yeah. But um, I don't have a really, I really don't have a problem with being quiet. You know what I mean? Because I don't mind interstate driving as long as I'm not in pain or nothing. I'm good to go. If you don't want to talk to me, you ain't gotta talk to me. You know what I mean? I mean, she talks, you know, it's not like she don't want to. I actually be wishing she'd go to sleep. But she she will not go to sleep. She will not go to sleep while somebody else is driving. I can't even I can't get comfortable on in the passenger's seat. Like she will even offer sometimes. You want me to drive? And I'm like, no. Man, I'll get in, I'll get in the back seat and stretch out. I don't care. As long as I ain't driving. I don't care. I think there's something with me where I, if I'm in the car, I have to be driving the car. Yeah. Like you and I would run to the store. You get in the driver's seat, I'm in the passenger seat, I I feel weird in the passenger seat. I don't know what it is. Hey, I I don't mind riding with anybody that likes to drive. If you want to drive, I'm more than happy to let you. Like I had to take this trip coming up. Oh, yeah. Now, are both of y'all going? No. Just you? Just me. Oh man, that's gonna be a lonely ass drive. I don't care. I take lonely drives as it is. Man, no, it'll be just like she's there. Now, you said it's an 11-hour drive? 11 hours, yeah. Okay, you said you're gonna stop somewhere. Yeah, stop at a friend's house and then drive the rest of the way, check in, and then go to the conference. The conference is actually like nine o'clock Thursday morning. So I figure I'll spend all day traveling on Wednesday, sleep, and then when the conference is over, two o'clock Sunday afternoon, I'm getting straight in the car and driving back. That's a lot, though. I'm thinking maybe when I wake up on Sunday morning, don't even go to the last day convention, just start heading home. Because if I leave at 7 o'clock or 8 o'clock in the morning, that'll get me home 7 or 8 o'clock Sunday night. Yeah. I'm guessing if I wait till 2, I won't get in till like Monday morning. Oh, man. And I don't want to travel that much. I love to drive, but not that much. Like I said, I don't really mind driving on the interstate and stuff. Because I um we was when we were planning that trip to North Carolina and everything, we was we was thinking about uh like driving for maybe five, six hours and then stopping somewhere in Virginia. Because we go straight down through West Virginia. Yeah. From the top to the bottom. All the way through. That's what I'm gonna be doing. I'm gonna go through West Virginia, get to 85, and 85 south. Yep, yep, there you go. And then um so when we got in Virginia or whatever, she said, You want to get a hotel? I said, No, let's just keep stopping, because we're not that far away. You know, we had we had already driven for like five hours once we got into Virginia. Because it only takes like four hours to get through West Virginia. So we got it, we got it, and I said, I made it this far. My knee's not really killing me, but let me, I'm gonna stop at the rest stop. You know, then I'd get out, take me some ibuprofen or something, rub my leg my knee down with Voltaire. That stuff works. I love that stuff. But um, I said, give me about 15 minutes, and then once my legs, you know, loosens up or whatever, we can get back on the road. So we stopped, we I think we stopped about five times on the way down there. But I said, no, I don't want to spend no money on the hotel. We can just keep going. Do you remember, like today, when we travel in cars, it's almost like it's uh like like we're a part of the Jetsons. Like everybody's like, oh man, that is so futuristic. But if you think about it, now we are in the future. We have we have the visual screens, push button for AC, satellite radio, like you were saying. Like remember back in the day when the only AC you had was the crank of the window? That was your AC? My dad used to call it 4WD, 4WD 60. 4WD, what's that? Four windows down, 60 miles an hour. But that was the AC back. That was the AC. And if you were going on long drives, forget about how unless you had a cassette deck or an eight-track player, yeah. Um you were you were listening to your station would fade down. AM, or if you did have FM, the FM station you listen to at home would slowly fade out, and then you'd have to search your dial. You'd have to hit that scan button. Scan would start going through all the different stations, and you're like, oh, what was that song? I think I like that. Now it's satellite, man. I could put that on in Pennsylvania and listen to the same station all the way to Indianapolis. Never without any interference now. Yep, that's what we did. And the thing about it, I just got it. Uh Siri sent me something. Like, said that uh, I forgot I even had satellite in my car. Oh, my kids old. 2013. Yeah. I got satellite in there. Yeah, they want you to act, that's another account. Yeah, but it's it was free's free for six months. For six months. For until June, something. And then after June, they're only gonna charge me two dollars a month for another six months. Oh, okay. And then after that, it'll go normal. They did that to me when we got our car. Did they? For I think I was paying like $2 a month for it. That's what mine was. And it was just a basic, and that was fine, because all I listened to was 70s on seven. Right, right. So 70s, 80s, 90s, yeah, yeah, all that stuff. Oh, man. And and that's it's great. And limited commercials. Yep. I think it's awesome. But again, we're living in the future. It's before you know it, and this is what it's gonna be because Google was trying this, the self-driving car. Oh, I know. Yeah, everybody's trying that so far. You get in your car and you push a button in a destination, then you sit back, and then you can play your game, and your car will take you where you gotta go. Well, shit, I'd be going to North Carolina every weekend with that button. So let me ask you this. Here's why I don't think we would do we we do that now. What? Would you actually need to own a car if that was the case? Let me give you for an example. Yeah, okay. I don't give a okay, where are you going with that? I don't know. All right. I need to go to work. Yeah. We have an Uber. All right, and we have to pay Uber to make someone drive to us and drive us to our destination. Like a taxi. Right. Well, if if cars became self-driving, cars themselves would be a service. They wouldn't be something that we just would buy. Oh, you would be. All right. Like it would be like cable. It used to be you'd have a VCR. Now we subscribe to a service, like a Roku streaming service. Right. All right. So cars would become a service. And what we would do is it would be an app on our phone. So if you want to buy an app, that's what you're buying. You're not buying a car, you're buying the app. And then you say, I need to go to the store. And then your car pulls up, you get in it, it takes you to the store. It takes you wherever you gotta go on your itinerary. And then you go home, and when you go home, the car goes back to the garage for maintenance. You know, I never thought about that. So would you need a car? No, because if cars become like that, there's no need for it. It would be a service. Exactly. Yeah, a service like Uber. Yeah. Except there's no people involved. There's no one getting robbed, there's no one getting raped, there's no one getting assaulted, there's no because there's no one in the car to do that to. Yeah. But if you don't own them, if they're not stylish and if they're not what you think it should be, who's gonna rob them? Who's gonna want them if they're just you don't have to worry about them getting stolen. Yeah, imagine it's just a round thing like the Jetsons, and it just a door lifts up, you get in, you sit down, and it takes you. And the thing about it too, though, that would make it hard for anybody in this field, too, because you you have to have the app for that car. Exactly. Or not for that car, for the service. For the service. Because let's say, let's say you're gonna take a trip to North Carolina and it's you and your wife, and you know what? Um, this person's going and that person's going. So instead of getting a car that would pick up just you, or just you and your wife, it's got to pick up more people, it would send a bigger vehicle. And then while you're in there, maybe maybe a card table comes up out of the floor, and you guys can play cards or dominoes while the car is on an 11-hour trip. Yep. Okay, now the only drawback about that is they'd have to perfect that first before I even try it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I don't trust themselves driving cars. Here's the problem that I see those cars communicate with one another, right? Right. So there's no need to speed because this car is sending out a signal. This car is receiving and sending out their signal. So the cars are talking to one another. When we get to the Fort Pitt Bridge, and cars need to go this way to go to the tunnels, cars need to go this way to go to the uh downtown, people are fighting to get over and get in, there'd be none of that. Yeah, because the cars are talking to one another. As it comes up in that merge, they're just gonna merge naturally. There's nobody, there's no there's nobody going, fuck you, man. I'm not letting you in, fuck you, I was waiting in this line. None of that will happen. Yeah, laying on the horns. That's why there was a problem with the self-driving cars, because self-driving cars weren't talking to the people, and people are assholes. And I've done it where I was in line, and yes, this this lane merges into this lane, right? And when I'm waiting in line for five or ten minutes, and a car flies up, and then once the pulling. I'm looking, I get out of the next guy's bump, but I'm like, I don't know. I do the same thing because if I can wait in front of me exactly, right? Look, I waited in this line all the time. You get your hands behind me, you stupid motherfucker. You can try to cut in front of my ass. A fleet of self-driving cars won't have that. Won't have that because they're they'll be they're all talking to one another. And there's there's no ego involved. It's just a car telling another car, come on. Yep. Yep. So that's that's crazy. I think it would be a good thing, but then I think who knows? You know what I hate too, miss if we bought that up to I hate somebody, some stupid self-bitch come up there, cut your ass off, and give you the finger. Yeah. Oh, Nay and I had this incident. What are you giving me the finger for? This girl, we were driving, we were coming down that back road from the VA hospital um to down to, you know where it's I can't, I don't remember the name of roads. I'm not good with it. Typical Pittsburger. You know where that church is over there? Anyway, we're coming down this road. Uh-huh. And this girl was on my ass. I hate that shit. Now, I've taken defensive driving courses, especially when I was an ambulance driver, we had to take courses like that. It's called Evoc, Emergency Vehicle Operator's Course. And you have to be aware of everything that's around you. And I was aware this girl was like, she was on my ass. Trying to rush me. I told Neg, I said, put your hold on. She was like that one around me. I did that before. But then she followed us all. She's flipping me the fucking. She threw a soda out her window at me, and she's screaming the whole time, and then boom, she got into an accident. Um, she is. Yeah, because she was more focused on me than she was her driving. And she didn't like crash into somebody, but she wound up off the side of the road. And I was like, Yeah, psycho, she was completely psycho. I don't get people like that, man. I don't one thing I don't do is play games on the road, especially the interstate. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I've people have been doing that, like you said, they pull up on you, man, and flick their lights at you and everything else. And then when they go around you, they give you the finger, man. Come on, man. I'm trying to make it safety. Just go. We were in the city. We were we were in Pittsburgh. So it's not like we were out on a highway. She followed us out onto the highway and did all this stuff. But here's my thing about highway driving. When I drive to Indianapolis to visit my son, two lanes. There's two lanes. This interstate has two lanes on this side, two lanes on that side, a Jersey barrier in the middle. Sometimes it has three lanes. Right in the middle lane if you need to. If you're in this lane, it means you're either exiting or you're going slow. This lane is for passing into the passing lane. Yeah. And I always, always, always find some stupid jerk over. Who's either doing the speed limit or just under the speed limit. Now, great. If you want to be in that lane doing the speed limit, when you notice someone not doing who is passing, move over and let them pass, and then go back to being an asshole. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, right. And a lot of these people won't, and a lot of them become like the highway police. They they're like, they shouldn't be speeding anyway. Yeah. So what they'll do is they'll they'll find a tractor trailer who's in the middle lane and they'll ride right along the river line. It drives me nothing. And I'm like flicking my high beams, I'm beeping hard, and I'm like, move the bug. All right, and the side go. I'm looking at I roll my window down, stick it out, and go. Yep. That's what I do all the time. Move. And they don't do it. And they don't do it. And you can see them looking in the mirror. You know, looking in the rearview mirror, bitch. They know what they're doing. Yeah. They're a bunch of jackasses. That is the passing lane. On the highway. Get the fuck out. On the highway, yeah. Get the fuck over. The situation I was in when the woman was up on my ass, we were in this city, and I had to be in this lane because one lane went this part of downtown. This is the lane I needed to go to 279. Okay. So I had to be in this lane. Man, she was right up on me, right up on me. I remember looking at that. I'm like, hold on. Hold on your ass, Fred. I heard, I heard this woman's tires. They were like white smoke flying out, and I was just like this. I'm looking in my rearview mirror, I'm going, guess what? And guess what? If she'd have hit you, it'd have been a bit her fault. Absolutely. Yeah. If you ram somebody in the back, it's your fault. Yeah, people drive like jerk off. Oh man. Yep. I hate that. Part of me is looking forward to my trip. That's the part of me that's not because I know I'm gonna. But here's the thing. If I'm leaving at midnight or one in the morning, I shouldn't have any problems. You shouldn't. Yeah. I could stay in the right lane, put on cruise control, and just play my games. You don't have a self-driving car. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You forgot about that. You ever hear about that guy? Uh-uh. When cruise control first came out in like, what was it, the late 70s, early 80s? Yeah. He had a van with cruise control in it. And he put on his cruise control, got up out of his seat, and went behind in his van to get a drink. He was trying to get a bottle of soda out of it out of his refrigerator. Okay. Got into an accident. What the hell were you doing? He goes, I put on the cruise control. Well, the cruise control doesn't stop when someone's in front of you, you jerk off. And so he thought he thought it was like a stuff driving car. What a motherfucker was gonna do everything for me. Oh man, he thought it was uh what are they calling on the airplane? Oh, autopilot. That motherfucker was an autopilot. But the only difference is there's traffic on the road, dude. Come on now. Some people just don't think. Yeah. There's a lot of that going on. Uh-uh. Oh yeah. And that's what they were done. Uh Marie asked me and uh her son Michael. He said, You ever give did you use cruise control? I said, damn, I never even thought of that. So I really went in there. I mean, I went in there when we got down there and I looked down there and tried to do it. I mean, that shit's so confusing. It's not I don't need to know. It's I gotta read the book. I love cruise control for this reason. You were talking earlier about your knee. Mm-hmm. That's what I mean. I should just Because when you have your foot on the gas, you're you're not your foot isn't laying flat. No. You can't put your weight of it on it because you'll go faster than you're supposed to. So you have to actually hold your foot up. Well, my shins, the muscles in the front, are what help to hold my foot up. And they start to hurt after a while. Then I get this pain on the side of my knee. So what I do is I put on cruise control and I relax my leg, and then I can use my so let's say I notice traffic up ahead is breaking. You slow it down. I just I don't even slow it down. I just tap the cruise control, it turns it off. And then I put my foot out and put it on the break or the gas where I need to. But for the most part, I can ride an hour at 65 miles an hour, 70 miles an hour, with the cruise control on and just do like this. Well, see, I use cruise control before, but on Marie's car, it looks like it's in Japanese. I can't understand what the hell I'm pushing. It's a Toyota, though, right? Yeah, Toyota, yeah. Yeah, because the next next long trip we take, I don't know when the hell that's gonna be. That's gonna be next year. But uh I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna figure out how to use hers. Yeah, I was I was driving um my sister-in-law's car when I went to Indianapolis, and she has a Nissan Ultima. And I couldn't figure out the cruise control on that either. I was like, how how is this not working? But on the Kia, it's real easy. It's it's ranked I think it says guide or or cruise is it's a cruise. It says cruise. Okay. And you just you just touch the cruise and it takes over. What are you driving to Atlanta? The the Kia. Oh, really? Yeah. Because the Ultima, the Nissan, it doesn't take my phone and I can't look at my maps and stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. It has this weird, it has a display, but it only has the car display. It doesn't let me put my Apple Play on there. So Name's car, the the Kia has the I could see my phone on my display. So what's she gonna do? Use the other car? She's gonna use the Nissan, yeah. That should be fun. Trying to take. I love her. I I I do. I love my wife, but she is not, she does not keep a clean car. Everything is in that car. Coffee cups from a year ago are in that car. French fries from five years ago are in that car. Oh my god, man. You know what? I don't know. Bree. She keeps a lot of junk in her car, but it's not dirty. No, it's not dirty. It's cluttered. Check this out. I was still married to my ex-wife. 1998. I bought a brand, I bought a brand new uh Chevy Blazer. 1998. Brand new. It has seven miles on it. Oh I got it. Okay, um, let me see. That was I bought it, oh, it was my birthday. I bought it in October. I said that I said this is my birthday present. Okay, um December of that same year, two months later, right? I tore my Achilles tendon. Right? I was playing basketball. I ruptured my Achilles tendon. I was down for like six months. She she commandeered my car the whole time because she knew I couldn't drive it because it was a clutch. It was a fast speed, and I needed my left foot there for the clutch and everything. Man, when I was able to drive that some bitch, don't you know it took me two days to clean that some bitch out? Man, cups everywhere in the back. She had clothes, extra clothes. I said, why do you got clothes in my car? Where the hell have you been going? I thought you were working. Here's the thing with Nay. We we I had the big Sorrento, and she had us the little Nero. But we got rid of the Sorrento. So we're both sharing the the Sorrento or the Nero now. But she still thinks of it as just hers. And she's still living in it as it was hers, with just every and we got it today. I had to go to my dentist today. And we're going there, and I I'm trying to get in. She's got this because she's short, the seat's all up, the steering wheel is all down. I can't. I'm like, what the can you please just put stuff back when you're done with it? It's my car. Oh, okay. Okay, here we go. There it is. And then she asked me the other day, she's like, I was telling her, wouldn't it be smart if we just paid off what we only got like seven grand left on it. Okay. Pay the seven grand, be done with it. So she says to me, Are we gonna pay off the car? Oh, is it the car now? When we gotta pay it off? Is that what you're saying? You know, as we wrap up, it's worth saying out loud, I'm not against the new stuff. The screens, the satellite radio, the cars that practically drive themselves, they're impressive. And they're part of the world our kids will grow up thinking is normal. But there's a certain magic in remembering how things used to be. Cranking the window for some fresh air and AC, the fading FM stations, long stretches of highway with nothing but conversation to keep you going. Those moments shaped us. And even though today doesn't feel like that anymore, someday this will be the good old days our children and grandchildren look back on with the same soft smile. So appreciate what was, and appreciate what is, and keep driving forward. This has been an MTC original podcast produced by Leo Mainville. Like, share, subscribe, and leave us a five-star rating. And thank you for listening.