Category: Life

I’m a Jeep girl. I always wanted a Jeep or a convertible, even when I was little. My plan was to start working part-time once I turned 16 and use what I earned to buy a Sebring convertible. I would paint it a metal-flake blue that was more green in some lighting and more purple in others. But despite my pie-in-the-sky dreams, I was still practical; I planned to keep a pair of tennis shoes in the car to wear while driving instead of heels. Because of course I would be wearing heels. As a smart, independent, employed young woman, I would certainly be wearing heels.

But my plans were all for naught when I turned the big 16 and my father refused to let me obtain after-school employment. He insisted that school was my job and working elsewhere would affect my grades. I couldn’t work while in high school and that was final. My hopes of becoming a self-made career woman who drives a beautiful car were crushed.

I didn’t get my first car until my second year of college. I’d held jobs by then, of course, but I was able to use my parents’ Ford Escort when needed (until my brother [who was allowed to have a job at 16!!] crashed it into a ditch), and I lived on campus my first year at university. But by my second year I really needed a vehicle to get to and from my night job, my apartment, school, home, and anywhere else I needed to go. My mom said she would buy me one, and because of this, Dad said he would.

I wanted a Jeep Cherokee. I read about them, researched them (they are safe!), and looked around for used Cherokees in the area. But alas, my first car was a Ford, not a Jeep.

As I said, I am a practical person, and I looked around for a suitable used vehicle out of all those available, not just Jeeps. Giant Husband (then Giant Boyfriend) and I found a nice Buick Regal that fit the bill, and test-drove it home to show my dad. He said it idled hard. Dad brought home a little Geo hatchback of some sort to show me. I hated it. A four-banger? No way. That wouldn’t even make it up the hill to my university! Dad thought I would like the lace an apparently-cutesy past owner had glued to the dashboard cover. I was not amused.

In the end, Dad said he was sick of looking (after two cars? when he looked for the perfect truck for years??), and suggested a 1993 Ford Thunderbird. Powder blue. I was interested in the Cherokee that happened to be on the same lot, but no dice. So my dad laid down money and we brought the T-bird home.

Thunderbirds can be pretty cool cars. The old ones are gorgeous, the newer ones with the little round windows are fun, but the years in between… well, let’s just say the 90s were a little bland sedan-wise. I lucked out on the pretty paint job at least, though the boa constrictor seatbelt in the door took some getting used to. And there was definitely a learning curve to parking the blue behemoth compared to the little Escort I had driven in the past.

However, I gained an enormous amount of independence by having my own car. I could go places. Do things. I didn’t have to wait to borrow the Escort or ask Giant Boyfriend to escort me around. No more escorts! It was great. I celebrated by independently taking my own damn self into town where I took my sweet time staring at TVs at the mall, actually listening to the salesperson’s spiel, and buying the extended warranty along with my little TV/DVD combo purchase. I had wanted a car. I had wanted a television. This was awesome.

My mom was coming out of the house when I arrived home and saw me pulling the TV box out of the car’s backseat. She asked me if the TV was for Dad. For Dad? We had several televisions in the house, including one just like the set I had bought in my parents’ bedroom, right next to Dad’s side of the bed. Mum told me that this TV had recently stopped working, and pointed out that Dad had just bought me a car…

So I walked right in and handed my happy-box-of-extended-warranty-television to my father. Because I’m nice like that. And appreciative. And as easily guilted as shit.

And that is my first car story. Highlights of my Ford T-bird ownership of ~3 years include:

• Naming the car Moonshine but having to change it to Starlight as the other could refer to booze. Tsk tsk.
• Enjoying the rollercoaster ride of driving between home and university on the freeway as the struts wore out.
• Racing Giant Boyfriend along the way.
• I swear that car drove best at 90 MPH.
• Winning a chance to win a bullet bike from a local radio station and having to drive back to uni-town after working overnight and subsequently falling asleep at the wheel for a second and waking up to driving over 100 MPH ~ luckily during an empty road and still on it.
• Finding out that the oxygen sensor that needed to be replaced was relatively cheap. Then discovering it needed two of them.
• Gaining a stripe of black paint across the door trim piece when someone decided he/she wanted to be in my lane. Right where I was driving in it.
• Trying to get the incredibly heavy, back-wheel drive vehicle up the slanted apartment parking lot to the road in two feet of snow.
• My dad always teasing me about the vehicle because my university’s mascot was also a Thunderbird. Did he by it for me on purpose?
• Tapping the bumper of my rich roommate’s ginormous Escalade she had decided to leave behind my T-bird in a blizzard.
• Giant Boyfriend fixing my alternator when it went out and subsequently dropping the part before getting it back in.
• Having the car die in the middle of the lot at work, Giant Boyfriend (may have been Giant Fiancé then) and a good friend struggle to figure out why it wouldn’t start, and later finding out that it had an anti-theft device that had gone awry. The vehicle had originated from Vegas. Go figure.
• Struggling to get out of the car after parking in regular-sized parking spots at school because of the dang obnoxious doors. That car had an impressive wingspan.
• And having to wish it a sad farewell when I sold it. To buy a Jeep.