The only problem? With over 200,000 miles, the car was a bit past it's prime. It was fine for the rest of the school year, but by summer, I was having to dump at quart of oil into it every day and pull over about every 10 miles or so, because it would overheat. When the school year rolled around and the weather changed, I had a new problem on my hands...my car wouldn't start when it was too cold. By winter, my parents decided that enough was enough and the car was no longer safe to drive.
I was pretty devastated, as that car had been a part of my life since I was four years old (I mean, I can still remember the time I puked strawberry milkshake all over the back seat on the way to Santa Barbara...the blue upholstery really set off the pink of the strawberries...all I can say is my poor parents...and my aunt and sister who were also in the car.) My parents bought the car brand new when we still lived in LA - we took dozens and dozens of trips to San Diego and Santa Ynez in it. I learned to drive in that car. I took my first solo road trip to LA in that car. I was attached to say the least.
Luckily, I didn't have to go without a car (seriously, I consider myself a super-lucky 16 year old.) We moved to Lompoc at that point, but I was still going to school in Santa Ynez and worked in Solvang - my parents agreed that a car was pretty necessary (and they certainly didn't want to haul me around.) However, my parents didn't have a ton of money, so what happened next was pretty amazing.
As it turned out, my dad bought some kind of raffle ticket at work a few weeks prior and ended up winning a Sea-Doo (seriously? I can think of 1,345 names that are better than that, but, whatever.) We really didn't have a use for it, so my dad ended up trading it in. He also happened to work at a car dealership at the time and someone traded in a slightly-used 1998 Nissan Sentra. The down payment was taken care of and the payments were low...so my parents bought it.
The deal was, it wasn't "my car" it was my parent's car, but I had free-reign to use it, as long as I paid for my own gas and I didn't have any tickets/accidents/etc (which, at the time I thought was grossly unfair - my sister had lots of 'incidents' and the Celica was never taken away from her...) The car wasn't my first choice, but I was stoked that I didn't have to go without. Honestly? The only real 'problem' with the car was the color. It was this greyish-purple-blue-silver...which, doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but I still missed my cobalt blue Camry.
Anyway, I quickly adjusted to "my" snappy new car (and even named it Billy Oliva...dude...I don't even know.) and after just a few trips realized how nice it was to have a car that started in any kind of weather and that didn't require me lifting the hood every day. The trunk was roomy enough to fit a few people (a necessity when you are sneaking people off campus for lunch) and it got great gas mileage (also a necessity when you are young and under-employed.)
Not long after I had it, I hit a skunk. Obviously, it didn't do any damage to my car, but the smell lingered for days. Driving in the car was torturous and it was probably one of the few times I wasn't harassed for rides after school (seriously, you could smell it in the high school parking lot....it was bad...it took three days for the smell to die down, and I don't know how long for it to go away completely) A month or two after the skunk incident, I ran over a snake when I was driving on the freeway with my friend. I remember it being a very random and "WTF" moment. But, again, no damage and I didn't think anything of it.
Eventually, senior year rolled around and that's when the carcass-ing really began....
Until next time, my friends!
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