Monday, March 16, 2009

In a league of its own

So, today I knew it was time to write, but I really had nothing pertinent to tell you (unless you care that I passed Friday's kidney stone). So I checked out Uppercase Woman, and Cecily wants to hear about our first cars. Yay! Something to blog about!
My first car was a beaut. My parents bought it for me just before I started my senior year in high school (1986), since I had finished almost all of my requirements and got out at 1 p.m. every day, after typing class and Death and Dying (yes, I did indeed take a class called Death and Dying, and it was really quite fascinating). I needed to get home, so this was it.
Let me preface my description of my car by telling you that I grew up in Westchester County and went to a private Catholic girls' school. A lot of my classmates were rich kids. And some were really stinkin rich. It was not the least bit uncommon for seniors and sometimes juniors, to show up driving Daddy's Benz, or some other car I will never be able to afford. One classmate was actually given a brand new Porsche for her 16th birthday, so she drove that baby to school. And then, there was my car. My Car.
Well, my car was in a completely different league. MY car cost $200. Total. My parents bought it from friends of theirs. It was a lovely gray 1976 Dodge Aspen with burgundy interior. It had a fabulous AM radio and a propensity to overheat if it idled for more than about 90 seconds. And since the two juniors I picked up every moring were never on time, my car was always overheating. The floor was rusted out between the gas and brake pedals, so my right foot was always wet when it rained. So was my shoulder, because there was a leak somewhere in the top of the passenger side door. There were holes rusted in the trunk, so if you stored anything back there, it had to be bigger than the holes or it would no longer be there the next time you opened the trunk. But this was my favorite feature: if you failed to lock the rear passenger side door, it would swing open every time your made a left hand turn. It was really and truly a gem of a car. My parents sold it right after I left for college and my understanding is that it burst into flames on the highway shortly thereafter Poor little car.

1 comment:

xmas said...

Thank you for this post.