Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Me and my car
Tomorrow morning, early, I am taking the Prius to the Toyota Medical Building for her well car check. Since I’ve just driven over 2,000 miles she might be thirsty for a little oil, perhaps a lube job, and having other essential fluids topped. Her tires will be rotated and she will get a complimentary car wash, according to my Service Representative.
They are very nice at the auto hospital. I hand over the key and head for the comfortable lounge area where the TV is always tuned to HGTV, probably the safest choice of stations. I have some homework to do, so I will use the quiet time productively.
But this is about my history with cars. I took my driver’s test as a teenager in Detroit, Michigan. I was terrified, of course. The examiner was a very large lady with really big hair and my first mistake was asking her if she wanted me to adjust the seat for her. She haughtily informed me that the seat was to be set for the driver, not the passenger. And so it began. I rolled through a stop sign and I knew right away that I would be taking this journey again. The next time the guy was nice and friendly and it went much better.
My first car was a Chevy Vega. I hadn’t had it very long before I swear that a red light turned green and I plowed into someone who was legally in the intersection. Fortunately nobody but a fender was injured. I had just worked several double shifts in a row, so it’s no wonder that I was seeing things that weren’t there. I drove the Chevy for several years before I decided to upgrade to a Ford Mustang.
This was my first real experience with the dealer’s money guy. He wore a lot of gold. My husband was with me so Mr. Money took both of our financial information. The man went first, then he came to the little lady with his questions. As I told him my salary, his eyebrows raised, he looked at my husband and said, “My, she’s a nice little asset!”. He’s lucky I didn’t rip the gold necklace off of him. But I got the Mustang anyway.
At some point we got a four wheel drive International Harvester Scout. I loved that thing. The first winter we owned it was a rough one and I wheeled all over St. Louis feeling very safe in four wheel drive. I found out, though, that when I thought I had put it into 4WD, it was actually still in 2WD. Had I known that I would have gone into a ditch. This is the same vehicle that, by a fluke of brake failure, I sank the car while putting a boat into a lake. The boat stayed above water, but the Scout went all the way under. I had to exit via the window since I couldn’t get the door open to escape drowning.
My middle age crazy car was a little sporty Mitsubishi Eclipse. I got a personalized license plate that said T’WONDA, after the mythical amazon woman in Fried Green Tomatoes. I was at a stoplight once when a good ole boy in a huge pickup rolled down his window and asked if my license plate was taken from “That Tomato movie?”. Yes, sir. Yes it was.
My longest four wheeled companion was a Toyota Rav 4, also named T’WONDA. She took me to New Mexico and I had her for eleven years. She was an absolute gem of a car and convinced me that Toyota makes good cars. But, when we moved back to Missouri in 2018, she was wearing out. I began to think about a Toyota Prius. My friend Rose got one of the first ones in 2007 and I admired its gas mileage and general kindness to the environment. My daughter was also driving a Prius, so I sadly traded in T’WONDA for a gun metal gray Prius. She gets 54 miles to the gallon, and, these days, that’s very very cool.