That First Scratch

 It was bound to happen, and it didn't take long. I got a parking ding on the new car. It was one of those drive-by-hit-the-mirror-before-driving-away accidents that happen routinely downtown. The damage wasn't bad, but still, I felt a pang.

We aren't a real car family. We tend to drive them into the ground, and even when we do buy a new car, it's never really new. My first car, purchased in 1978, was a white Impala that I bought for $100. I spent another $5 on a can of white spray paint from K-Mart which I used to cover the rust on the fenders and doors.

 It wasn't pretty (not as nice as this by a longshot), but my boyfriend could fix anything that went wrong with chewing gum and bailing twine, and it ran. I drove it to college and eventually sold it for $100.

Over the years, depending on the number of kids we were hauling around, the cars got bigger, with vast backseats. We had two Oldsmobile Silhouettes that we bought from my father-in-law which we drove into the ground. They were the type with the vast front windshield. It felt like you were driving an arcade video game. The last one, by the time we finally got rid of it, had a door that literally was tied shut with baling twine. It went on many family road trips and I would venture to guess it plays heavily into my children's summer vacation memories. They would listen to an old mix tape that was labeled, "Driving With Dad." Cliff still has the mix, and in fact, has gifted the children with memorial CD's. They speak with great fondness of the time they were fighting over a big bottle of Coke in the backseat and Cliff, while driving, grabbed it out of their hands and poured it out the window. "I can still see it streaming along the windows at 80 miles an hour," is how my daughter remembers it.  "Not my finest hour," is how Cliff recalls the incident. But they all laugh.

 Then there was the shiny red Sebring convertible. I loved that car, and Cliff bought it for me. It certainly wasn't his first choice. My dad said at the time, "I guess everybody has to make that mistake at sometime in their lives," and shook his head. And he was right. We rarely put the top down because it was either too cold or windy. When I bought it I had three small kids, so dropping them off at school meant one in the front seat, two in the back. "Shotgun!" was our morning rallying cry. I sold it the year we acquired a South Korean exchange student. Three teenagers just didn't fit in the back.

We bought a Jeep instead. I loved that car, too. It could practically move sideways, that's how good the turning radius was, and it also carried us on many family trips. Never mind the fact that it got eight miles to the gallon. We had it for a decade.

So, we bought the shiny red "Every Car." You know the one. It has a modern-day wagon look, with the windows that get smaller in the back, and the hatchback in lieu of a trunk. It goes a lot farther on a tank of gas, it's comfortable, and it boasts a Bluetooth phone and stereo system. But I have trouble finding it in a crowded parking lot.
I never had that problem with the white Impala.