Out With the Old, In With the Blue

I am going to miss my ol’ Saturn. Not that there wasn’t a moment during its death throes that I didn’t seriously consider beating the Charles Dickens out of it with the baseball bat I kept in the trunk.

Like this, except instead of a flaming fist it’s a Louisville Slugger.

The only thing that kept me from doing it was the thought of being arrested for wailing on my own car on the side of the highway (the bat is generally used for impromptu baseball games and not for violence, if that makes me sound any less crazy). No, the Saturn had seen better days.

Over the years, the Saturn and I got into a few altercations with other cars (and one large dog, RIP “Puddles”), and it wasn’t exactly the nicest car to look at. All of the wrecks were on the left side, however, and the right side was as pristine as the day in 1999 that it rolled off the assembly line. This earned it the name Two-Face. The first question asked by anyone who ever rode in Two-Face was, “Geez, what happened to your car?” followed by, “Why do you have a severed pair of women’s legs glued to your dashboard?” and then, “O God! Am I going to end up in your crawlspace?”

“Don’t worry, her torso is in the floorboard.

…..Yes, that was supposed to be reassuring.”

The severed legs actually belong to Pikalukahine, my Hawaiian princess/hula girl that melted in the sun. She was part of the Saturn’s charm. As I was cleaning the car out, I noticed how many of the other accessories were old and dated – my McCain/Palin 08 sticker, my UAB graduate tassle, a wall decoration from my days at Gap. It was time for something new. Still, I almost felt callous as I abandoned it in the dealer’s lot and drove away in my 07 Chevy Aveo.

Saying goodbye to Two-Face made me reminisce about all the cars I previously drove or grew up with. My first car, a ’92 Ford Probe, actually had many names, one of which may or may not have been a juvenile acknowledgment that I drove a Probe. I more fondly remember it as The Last Resort, so named because my friends would rather have ridden in a Gremlin without brakes that was currently on fire and heading towards a mine field. I loved that car, though. It was my first freedom and was just big enough to carry my drum set to gigs. The Probe was eventually stolen after I broke down on the interstate. My father picked me up, and when we came back for it two days later it was gone. This means that a crafty thief either spent thousands of dollars rebuilding the engine, or they got a wrecker and towed it to a scrapyard where hobos, to this day, refuse to sleep in it. Either way, I’d like to think The Last Resort lives on.

After my Probe was gone, I drove my father’s dark green Dodge Caravan. My friends and I called it The Rapist, because it was the type of car you’d see listed on overhead Amber Alerts. I drove The Rapist until it, too, met an untimely demise on the side of the interstate. My father owned an Oldsmobile while I was in high school, and I called it The Crapper, which is a cleaned up version of its actual nickname among my friends. While it wasn’t very cool to drive, I liked it because it was good for “getting wheels”. Before I could drive I remember getting chauffeured around in my brother Aaron’s Poop Log, which was an ’89 Cavalier the color of digested prunes. Aaron would go on to eventually drive a ’95 Dodge Spirit named The Grandma-bile. He was not fond of these nicknames, but I assured him that they were hilarious.

So now I have a car that runs properly and has no hideous cosmetic flaws. It still needs a silly nickname, however. My first thought was “Chevy Chase”, but then realized that was unimaginative. I've been playing on the fact that it’s blue. Blutooth? Bluto? Blu Cantrell? I’m sure something will catch on. In the meantime, here’s to at least 66 financed months of good times together.

Goodbye, Two-Face.

 Hello…..Picasso’s Blue Period? I need help here, people.