What should be done about poo stains in my 1986 Datsun?

Signed,
Ahmed Gallo

As I prepare to address your conundrum, I reflect on my dictationist Jarwaun, who sits here folded upon himself like though he has forsaken his vertebrae. In posture, my dear typist is doubled over, his worn elbows pressing into his knees. He holds the keyboard device by pinioning it betwixt his wrists and the knees, like—

i don't like mr. squid talking bout me like this so i gonna watch some youtube and just bang on the keyboard so he think i'm recording all his words but really i'm just typing and erasing back and forth. sometime mr. squid mean for nothin'. also, why none y'all be comin' to my myspace and bein' friends, yo? mr. squid got all kinda crazy hoochie ladies and dancin' cats and rockstars friendin' him, and i only got him and some cracker named tom and mobb deep — though it fresh to got mobb deep as a friend

— little relation to your query, my dearest Mr. Gallo. It was early this past week, when our Motown weather was still ice-locked and far from the mudluciousness of Spring we currently enjoy, when I set to begin to plan to prepare to outline the composition of my answer to you — listing for Jarwaun's elucidation the several Chilton manuals I thought might best cast light on the issue — when a grumble-coughing brought my eyes to the door of my lab, where-in I did espy my faithful lab assistant, Rob Miller! Great was my surprise to see his pale, cough-wracked, nearly nude form. His whitened monkey-feet showed the blackened coloration of frostbite, a stubble of patchy whiskers cleaved to his face, and his eyes were wild. He was trembling and his head was shorn to the scalp.

"Holy shit, Lord A, is it good to see you!"

"Rob," I did gasp, "You are —" I did look to the wall-mounted chronometer, " — one-thousand, one-hundred and twenty-eight hours late. I believe your pay will need be docked."

Rob's eyes were unfocused and his mouth hung open, carpishly. "What the fuck?"

"You were due in on the morning of January the Second."

"You're gonna dock me for 24 hours per day?! My shift's only eight, you space-mutant fuck!"

"But you can possibly make amends for your tardiness. Attend!"

"Do you even know where the hell I've been?"

"You previously owned a Datsun, did you not? One of our readers has a question regarding Datsuns and their upholstery and it is fortuitous that you should happen through at just this moment, as our research has as-of-yet been unproductive."

Rob punched the glass wall of my aquarium. His knuckles were split and left four bloody dots on the cool glass. "I was fucking stuck on Boblo Island hiding in Captain Andy's Rivertown Review for like—what?—eight weeks? And that wasn't even the fucking start of — "

"I did ask Devo, but he said Real Men do not drive Datsuns and then he thrust his hips thusly." I pantomimed Devo's forceful air-thrusting in my tank, setting up pleasing waveforms.

that true, too, dawg. mr. squid look like my kid brother trael's little dog used to when he'd hump the sofa pillows, before pop said we had to get rid of him because he was spoilin' the sofa. it's real funny when a dog does it, but kinda scary when mr. squid does it.

"Jarwaun did not know what a Datsun was, and Molly merely shrugged. You are the resident expert on Datsuns, young Rob, and now your country needs you." I punctuated this with a forceful tentacle-thrust toward Rob. As the tentacle neared, a primal monkey-fear overcame his features and he screamed, toppling backwards over Jarwaun to curl foetal beneath Jarwaun's cubicle's desk.

Rob cowered in his tattered rags, clutching at his manic goose-pimpled flesh and would not respond to any of my gentle enjoinders. Jarwaun and I busied ourselves scouring the Internets for information on Datsuns and poo stains.

Molly delivered a Heatened Chocolate in a mug to Rob and performed a maneuver that I first mistook to be an attempt to encircle, crush and devour him—popular amongst many squids and octopoda, and also of the python, who is an arboreal one-tentacled octopus (or monopus, as it is best termed)—but Jarwaun calmed my yelling and explained that it was just a "hug" that Molly granted Rob. Devo also delivered a present unto Rob—a bath robe made of the fuzzy hide of the Terry. Rob appreciated these gifts, it seemed, and they calmed him. Soon his powers of speech were restored.

"Look Lord A., you can't be thrusting your tentacles at me or yelling at me or anything. I've been . . . I mean . . ." Rob shook his head, "It's been . . . Let's just say I'm a little squirlly right now. OK? No scary shit. OK?"

"Rob, I will cease producing the 'scary shits' if you will but grant me the favor of your knowledge of the Datsun and the Poo Stain." I gingerly extended a tentacle and pressed it upon the glass. "Do we have the deal?"

Rob stepped back and spilled the Molten Cocoa on his hand and across the sleeve of the Cloth of the Robe made from Terry. He cursed and then pressed his steaming, chocolatey hand against the tank glass. Our handshake was complete. The deal, she was made. "Tell me," I implored. "Tell me of the Datsun."

Rob sighed and leaned his forehead against the cool glass. "Okay, I bought this used Datsun back in, like, '98. I was broke but my grandpa spotted me the cash." He closed his eyes and smiled. "I was going to pay him back, when I got a job. The car was so I could get to work and be mobile and shit like that. We test drove it and the doors didn't lock, and the horn didn't work and the speedometer was broken." Rob sipped the cocoa-en-fuego. "But my grandpa assured me the price was still good, and that all of the repairs were trivial. And he bought that damn Datsun for me."

"Did you name it?" I asked gently.

"Nah. I mean, I tried. But nothing stuck. I tried Speedy, Datsunstroke, Green Machine, Greta, Weedmobile, Kitt, Optimus Primer-Gray. But in the end nothing seemed right."

"And when, dear Rob, did you get the poo stain in the car?"

"What? Fuck man, I didn't have poo stains in my car! What do you think I am, some sort of junkie fecal freak—"

"I've heard of many activities being performed in cars. Hazel once described a maneuver—"

Rob leapt at the sound of her name and bolted from the room. I was left alone.

Molly called in on my speaker phone. Her voice crackled and popped. "Tell Gallo that he should try soda water, then salt. If those don't work he can bleach out the stains and then re-dye it the color he wants." The speaker popped loudly, improbably sending a bubble upwards in my tank. "And tell him to be more careful in his car."

And so, my dear Ahmed Gallo, that is your advice. The research has been difficult, time-consuming and improbable, but it has been successful. As ever, I vanquish demons of Doubt and Uncertainty.

also, if you got the vinyl seats, you can clean that with windex and paper towels. i know. when we was little our pop had a nissan d21 hardbody, and that the same truck, mostly. the vinyl seats clean real easy with windex. but don't let trael know I told you. he still embarrassed.

also, i lied to mr. squid about not knowin what a datsun is, 'cause i didn't want to say my pop had one after he said devo said it was a homo car. devo know about cars and homos.

I Remain,
The Giant Squid