A Brief History of My Transportation

As I drove home from work yesterday afternoon I was ruminating on exactly how much I hated my Honda Civic. After twenty minutes of serious thought I decided the Civic ranked a 5 on the Car From Hell Scale. It is by no means the worst car I've ever owned, but far from the best. Sure, it's new, gets great gas mileage, and I've never had any problems with it mechanically (knock on wood). It simply lacks any character or comfort. (It's also blue. Blue! I like blue as much as the next person but a blue car- well, that's bordering on ridiculous.)

Anyway, thinking about my little Civic got me started on a trip down memory lane. I did some quick calculations and concluded that in the 11 years I have had my license I have owned no less than 10 cars. Is that even possible, you might ask? I assure you it is. While I wouldn't have the time or energy to wax poetic on each of my former car's attributes, I can do a little dedication to the best and brightest of the bunch.

1978 Chevy Caprice
My first car. My Dad bought it for me for $100 from "some guy he knew". At the time, I didn't realize "some guy he knew" was code for "the town dump". Now I know better. I'm also pretty sure my parents bought me the most embarassing car possible on purpose- they certainly didn't see the irony of my first car being the same age as I. When it died for the very last time on the side of the road, about a quarter mile from my high school, the AAA man called it Noah's Ark as he winched it up onto the back of his tow truck. I was not sad to see it go. Until...

1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra
This beast sat about 40 of my closest friends and relatives. Seriously, I could drive everyone on my street to school in the morning. It lasted me a very long time, in teenage years. I think I had it for 75% of my senior year of high school. I traded it straight up for the lackluster brown Dodge Aries K because the Aries K didn't require $57 worth of gas every other day to go the 10 miles to school and back. And this was back when gas was $.95 a gallon.

1984 Dodge Daytona
I refuse to include a picture of the Dodge Daytona. There is no way it would do it justice since MY Daytona was... wait for it!... hot pink. Oh yes it was. It also had baby blue dice in the mirror and made a sweet backfiring noise on the highway that sounded eerily similar to a shotgun blast. Alas, when I returned to college after the summer my sister crashed the Pinkmobile into an oncoming car in the woods of NH.

1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme
This car was a step up in a major way: the dash lights were completely digital. It was like Kit from Night Rider, only it didn't talk to me. Also, the driver's side door opened from the side by the window and the handle was broken, so I often climbed in for a drive from the backseat. This car got traded in when I got my first real job out of college, but I was actually sad to see it go, red velvet interior and all.

1995 Honda Accord
This car rocked, no question. Leather, moonroof, cd, super comfortable. This car was awesome. Until little things started adding up: the radio antenna falling off, the windshield wipers stopped working, etc. I cried when I traded it in. But then...

2003 Nissan Altima
This car was my true love. My first brand new car. Leather, Bose stereo surround sound, the whole deal. I cried when this car was gone too, but that was because I ran a stop sign and smashed into a truck that was being driven by the library director with whom I had an interview scheduled the next day. And had to go to the emergency room.

And then came the Civic. You can't blame me too much for the Civic- I was in grad school, it was cheap, convenient, and dependable. Yes, all in all, I suppose my Civic will do just fine for now. I shouldn't be so harsh on it, especially considering the alternatives.

*A brief apology to all my cars that didn't get their own entry on this list. They get an honorable mention here: the brown Dodge Aries K, the Saab that smelled like barnyard animals, the red Dodge Aries K that required you to keep your foot on the gas pedal even when you were braking or it would shut down, and the white DeVille I pimped around in for a while.