Vehicular Memories

I've been watching a lot of BBCAmerica.  Especially Top Gear.  What a show!  Three blokes nattering on about normally way-overpriced super-cars.  Then they do silly challenges with clunkers.  But sometimes, they show a cute thing like this!

 That's a Fiat 500.  And clearly I'm a sucker for little cars.  I've always dreamed of having a Mini, or a VW Bug, or maybe a SmartCar (if it got better gas mileage!).

Currently they have a contest, telling stories about your first car.  My first car... well, do you count the first one I regularly drove, or the first I actually owned?  Being rambly-me, I'll tell you about both eventually, I'm sure.

For three years pre-college, I drove my grandmother's really old Oldsmobile.  I can't even remember the year or make of it, but it was... special.  As in special needs.  The radio didn't have a tuning knob, just buttons that you pushed that might make it land on a station.  Usually not one I'd want to listen to, but it was Random Station or static.  The doors were tricky.  I'm pretty sure the passenger doors wouldn't open from the inside.  A bit inconvenient in winter, to roll down your window in order to get out.  The roof upholstery had come unglued, so a tall person would practically be wearing it..  Luckily, I'm short.  And it was a bit ol' boat, hard to park and fuel-inefficient.

I still loved it.  I had a learner's permit and a car!  Just what every teen dreams of!  "Dad, please, all I want in life is four wheels and a gasoline engine!"  "Okay, kid, here's the lawnmower, go to it!"  "Oh yeah!"  But I was able to haul around my friends when we had to sell ad space in the yearbook, or cover the football games.  It was better than nothing.  But maybe I should have been clued in when my parents insisted I borrow my uncle's Taurus to actually take my license test.  I agreed, because I knew parallel-parking the Olds would be a nightmare.

Prepping to come to college, I did despair a bit of doing anything with the Olds.  I figured I could limp it up here, but with no AC and a dubious record of starting in the cold, I thought it would pretty much stay parked until I went home.  So imagine my surprise, when on the night of my graduation, my parents gave me a Mercury Topaz!  Not new, but certainly newer than the Olds!  They'd always said that I couldn't own a car until I graduated.  The Olds wasn't actually mine, I had to ask when I wanted to take it.  But they didn't want my safety at risk in the ol' clunker, so they'd found me a decent little used Topaz.

Well, yeah, I'd say the Olds makes for a more fun first-car talk.  The Topaz was nice, but very ordinary.  First-car stories should be quirky or funny.  It's a rite of passage.