By JESSE DUNSMORE

Senior Reporter

The American cowboy is a very real figure, but is typically only seen through the mists of myth. 

Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, the legendary leather-faced gunslingers, romanticized the lives of real-life cattle-driving mercenaries. And in turn, the Duke and Clint gave way to another breed of cowboy, more accustomed to the modern definitions of manliness, personified in Toby Keith and Big & Rich.

I like to think that the cowboy I became the week after spring break fell somewhere in its own category.

First, some explanation: I was supposed to go to Indiana to visit some friends during the last weekend of spring break. Yes, I know Indiana is not as far south as some people think you should go. 

I wasn’t planning on drinking, and pardon me if that makes me “uncool,” but it’s very hard to play WarCraft 3 on my friends’ LAN while intoxicated. 

And Dungeons & Dragons would become downright impossible. (Insert a moment of silence for Gary Gygax.)

Anyway, I got an oil change, then headed to a friend’s house the next evening. My engine light was blinking, but I assumed the mechanics had screwed something up and just kept driving. 

On the way there, the car accelerated funny and shook at stoplights and spit exhaust out in spurts.

I got there and thought, “Surely I won’t be able to diagnose this mysterious and arcane problem in my engine, but I should give it a shot.” 

So I popped the hood, got out of the car, and walked to the front, trying to ignore the electric sizzling sound coming from my engine compartment. I lifted the hood over my head and froze in place as my brain went into shock.

I quickly diagnosed the problem as being connected to two things:

1. A sparking wire cut completely in half, which I later identified as a spark plug wire.

2. A live rabbit. That’s right. Live. As in, not-cooked, electrocuted or squished after riding in my engine compartment for 16 miles. He ran away.

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Later, the car wouldn’t start.

So, I ended up towing it to my mechanic, who called me back five days later to inform me that my 1997 Chevy Malibu  was “broken” and the problem likely had something to do with “electricity.” 

After missing three days of work and two classes, I broke down and rented something.

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I know a guy who did lots of body work on my last car. I was a good customer. 

A quick driving-record round-up, in case you’re interested: I have sideswiped a car carrier, been sideswiped by a truck, rear-ended two SUVs, and obliterated a deer, all in a four-year period. I think I actually put this man’s children through a year of college. So he found it in his heart to rent me one of his loaner cars for $15 a day.

N style=”; font-size: 9.5px; text-indent: 8px; “>It was with this vehicle, a 1995 Ford F-150, that my transformation into cowboy began. 

See, old cowboys rode horses. But they got horrible mileage and were notoriously dangerous on the freeway (no one ever survives sideswiping a car carrier on a horse). 

N class=”Apple-style-span” style=”line-height: normal;”>The pickup truck is the vehicle of choice for the modern cowboy. Whether you need to haul lumber or drag the Eiffel Tower behind you through downtown Paris to put all those Frenchies in their place, there’s a truck for you. 

And I really got used to this, though the main ability mine had was to make me sit higher off the ground than my Malibu ever did. 

There were a few minor hitches — for example, the first four times I attempted to pull out of the parking lot, I was almost killed due to my unfamiliarity with the rear-wheel drive on icy pavement, the light back end, and the fact that I really, really suck at driving trucks. 

The first two things I took care of by stopping further from corners and stacking hundreds of pounds worth of cedar fenceposts in the bed. To deal with the third, I gripped my steering wheel until all feeling drained from my forearms and my face froze into a terrified grimace.