this week i'm driving around in this giant chevy surburban rental, courtesy of mr. paradise, while my car is in the shop. i must look like the total soccer mom- but i'm totally fooling everyone. it's not me, i don't have enough kids and none of them play soccer. if i were to drive a big car it should be a mini-bus- the small yellow one that the special students rode on, (and my friend lisa who lived on a windy road with not enough kids for a big bus).
when i was a kid- i wanted to by a used mail truck as my car. it had to be something quirky and different. but it was pre-internet and i really had no idea how to find one. i think i called the post office to find out what they did with all the run-down-but-still-functional postal trucks. being that it was a government agency, i didn't get very far. then i decided to save up and get an old VW bug.
i had a job three nights a week serving dinner and washing dishes at the Champion Center- a home for retired priests. i worked mostly in the kitchen with two other punk kids who'd been there for a year. they wore black and spiked their hair and had tee-shirts that said 'minor threat' and chains to hold their wallets and listened to the 'dead milkmen' and talked about having sex in the graveyard behind the center. i was a fairly innocent-retro hippy-ish kid my senior year. i listened to crosby, stills, nash and young and wore moccasins with soft leather soles and balloon-y transparent pants from india. i 'hung out' in harvard square and liked silver dangley earrings with teardrop shaped semi-precious stones in the center. my boyfriend loved the grateful dead, smoked cigarettes and had been kicked out of rehab, which thrilled my parents. he smelled like tobacco and strawberries and patchouli, and my mother said that she could tell by his eyes that he'd seen more things than i had in life. she was for sure right- but i loved him. not in the permanent sense that they worried about- but in the way that you do when you're seventeen and you really kiss someone for the first time. the way you do when you find someone you connect with who is completely different from you- but you share some desire to know each other at the same level. the way you do when you spend hours listening to music in a hot attic room of the house of a boy in who's eyes you stare into and see a different world. and it was with that boy that i skipped school and went to hang out in harvard square the day after i'd purchased that VW bug, temporarily costing me my parents trust and permanently costing me the loss of my first car. there were lemon laws in massachusetts and my senior skip day prank stole the attention away from a proper timely inspection of that car. so i was out about $600 and my seventeen year old freedom.
my friend johnny was a car guy. he worked at a gas station and had a couple of old cadillac's in his yard that he worked on and drove around in. the best one was an old gray one with red leather seats and a plastic lobster strapped on to the front grill- the 'wack-a-lac' (his last name was wacker). that car had personality that could carry someone who needed it. johnny didn't need it, but it was a good match for him. we spent a lot of time driving around in that car and listening to bruce springsteen while he tried to convince me that my boy from the other side of the tracks was no good for me.
that boyfriend of mine drove an old blue pontiac bonneville- he hated it, but pretended not to. then when he turned 18 he came into some money, waiting for him since he was 5 and was hit by an orange VW bug, and he bought a honda prelude. i think it ruined him sort of- like me in the suburban- it just wasn't him. things changed after that. he had to figure out who he was again. that's why car's should just be what they are- vehicles.
i've many other cars between 17 and 40 and i don't consider myself a car person. i think of them as functional- if they get a ding- i don't get stressed out. i've never waxed a car, or even had one detailed. as long as it gets me there and has heat in the winter, i'm OK. but when we had bryn and needed something with enough room for 2 parents and three car seats- we had to at least look at the dreaded minivan. (for a great post on minivans- see my friend kim's post: http://www.gradydoctor.com/2011/01/dirty-little-secret.html) thankfully, i got fully carsick while riding in the back during a test drive. phew!! and we got the honda pilot. i like being up higher off the road- i like the perspective.
so that's it. me and cars. now we're getting the pilot all pretty to sell and the old CRV too (mike is very honda brand loyal). pretty soon we'll be buying a car that rides on the other side of the road and expects to see more dirt than pavement, more bumps than smooth. and this time, i'm just hoping for seat belts and maybe an airbag.
when i was a kid- i wanted to by a used mail truck as my car. it had to be something quirky and different. but it was pre-internet and i really had no idea how to find one. i think i called the post office to find out what they did with all the run-down-but-still-functional postal trucks. being that it was a government agency, i didn't get very far. then i decided to save up and get an old VW bug.
i had a job three nights a week serving dinner and washing dishes at the Champion Center- a home for retired priests. i worked mostly in the kitchen with two other punk kids who'd been there for a year. they wore black and spiked their hair and had tee-shirts that said 'minor threat' and chains to hold their wallets and listened to the 'dead milkmen' and talked about having sex in the graveyard behind the center. i was a fairly innocent-retro hippy-ish kid my senior year. i listened to crosby, stills, nash and young and wore moccasins with soft leather soles and balloon-y transparent pants from india. i 'hung out' in harvard square and liked silver dangley earrings with teardrop shaped semi-precious stones in the center. my boyfriend loved the grateful dead, smoked cigarettes and had been kicked out of rehab, which thrilled my parents. he smelled like tobacco and strawberries and patchouli, and my mother said that she could tell by his eyes that he'd seen more things than i had in life. she was for sure right- but i loved him. not in the permanent sense that they worried about- but in the way that you do when you're seventeen and you really kiss someone for the first time. the way you do when you find someone you connect with who is completely different from you- but you share some desire to know each other at the same level. the way you do when you spend hours listening to music in a hot attic room of the house of a boy in who's eyes you stare into and see a different world. and it was with that boy that i skipped school and went to hang out in harvard square the day after i'd purchased that VW bug, temporarily costing me my parents trust and permanently costing me the loss of my first car. there were lemon laws in massachusetts and my senior skip day prank stole the attention away from a proper timely inspection of that car. so i was out about $600 and my seventeen year old freedom.
my friend johnny was a car guy. he worked at a gas station and had a couple of old cadillac's in his yard that he worked on and drove around in. the best one was an old gray one with red leather seats and a plastic lobster strapped on to the front grill- the 'wack-a-lac' (his last name was wacker). that car had personality that could carry someone who needed it. johnny didn't need it, but it was a good match for him. we spent a lot of time driving around in that car and listening to bruce springsteen while he tried to convince me that my boy from the other side of the tracks was no good for me.
that boyfriend of mine drove an old blue pontiac bonneville- he hated it, but pretended not to. then when he turned 18 he came into some money, waiting for him since he was 5 and was hit by an orange VW bug, and he bought a honda prelude. i think it ruined him sort of- like me in the suburban- it just wasn't him. things changed after that. he had to figure out who he was again. that's why car's should just be what they are- vehicles.
i've many other cars between 17 and 40 and i don't consider myself a car person. i think of them as functional- if they get a ding- i don't get stressed out. i've never waxed a car, or even had one detailed. as long as it gets me there and has heat in the winter, i'm OK. but when we had bryn and needed something with enough room for 2 parents and three car seats- we had to at least look at the dreaded minivan. (for a great post on minivans- see my friend kim's post: http://www.gradydoctor.com/2011/01/dirty-little-secret.html) thankfully, i got fully carsick while riding in the back during a test drive. phew!! and we got the honda pilot. i like being up higher off the road- i like the perspective.
so that's it. me and cars. now we're getting the pilot all pretty to sell and the old CRV too (mike is very honda brand loyal). pretty soon we'll be buying a car that rides on the other side of the road and expects to see more dirt than pavement, more bumps than smooth. and this time, i'm just hoping for seat belts and maybe an airbag.
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