My first car was a 1985 Honda Prelude (I got it in 1993). It had been my sister's car, and ever since she got her new Accord, it had been sitting on our street waiting for me to turn 16.
The weird thing was, I didn't get my license right away when I turned 16. It took me a month to get my act together, take the necessary classes, and finally take the test. Most kids are DYING to get their license, but for some reason I waited.
When I got the car, I was thrilled. It was low to the ground. It had a sunroof. It had pop-up headlights. It was pretty fun to drive at first.
(I'm thinking of Don Quixote's horse Rocinante. Rocín in Spanish means work-horse or low-quality horse.)
Maybe I got the car when it was ready to fall apart, or maybe I drove it too hard. Either way, it didn't last. The first thing to go was the exhaust system. The pipe broke before connecting with the muffler, so the car was very, very loud. My friends called it the "Lawn Mower".
I drove Pat Sigg to school when I was a sophomore and he was a freshman. He lived a block away, and one morning I picked him up late. He said, "I was gonna call you, but then I heard you start your car."
One of the windshield wiper blades fell off. The black stem scratched the windshield whenever it rained, until I taped a tiny American flag to the stem. And then I'd turn on the wipers and a tiny American flag would wipe streaks of rain across the passenger side of the windshield.
I took a hacksaw to the back bumper to change the car from a "Honda" to a "Ho."
I used to drive across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the way to school -- the workmen had set up a line of orange cones in the left lane. I would drive past, hold my door open, and knock each one down.
Clarke Williams and I went to see the movie Speed, where a bus can't drop below 50 MPH or else a bomb will go off. On the way home, we played Speed (but reduced the speed limit to 10 MPH). As I drove past Clarke's house, he climbed onto the window frame, and jumped off the car. I didn't drop below 10 until I bounced into my driveway.
This is the route -- it's 5.7 miles
Then one fateful night, I drove my friend Peter home. As I approached a big orange construction barrel, I told him, "Watch this."
I unlatched the door, sped up and threw the door open into the side of the barrel.
The barrel must have been filled with cement.
WHAM!!! My tapes flew out of the door's pocket, and I screeched to a stop. The door was dented and wouldn't close. I drove Peter home, where we found some rope to tie the doors shut. I had to climb in through the sunroof.
I told my parents the door "just broke" (which really didn't happen), probably because it was damaged that time someone backed into the car (which really did happen). I don't know how they believed me, but they did. Or they said they did. They gave the car to the Salvation Army, and I moved on to my next car: Tom's leftover Accord!
Not my car, but this is the model