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I do not have good luck with cars.  In thirty-one years I have had  ::counts on fingers:: FOURTEEN cars.  That’s a lot.  And the majority of them have met bad ends.

(Spoiler alert:  By the end of this, you’re going to be wondering how such a smart girl like me can be so DUMB about cars.  Ummmm……the patriarchy?)

The first was my grandmother’s 1984 Chevy Cavalier.  That car ran fine until literally the day I gave it to my brother.  I was driving it that night for reasons I can not remember and I was on the highway going highway speeds and….the tire fell off.  Just went rolling across the road.  I watched it go and thought, “Huh” and then “That’s not good” and then “OH CRAP!” (I was a young’un then and did not curse as fluently as I do now). 

After that I had a sporty Toyota Celica but not for long because my husband (at the time) was all into autocross and decided that the best competitive vehicle he could have would be a Mazda Protégé but he did not want to get rid of HIS car (a Mazda 323) so he bought the Protégé for ME and he’d use it on the weekends.  I was okay with this even though the Celica was super sweet and sexy, because the Protégé was BRAND SPANKING NEW and I loved that car.  It had a moon roof, and a candy dish!  (I would keep jelly beans in the candy dish and sometimes, whilst driving, myself or Krumpet would accidentally ingest a Buttered Popcorn jellybean and those were the WORST and we would foam at the mouth and flail around wildly until we could open a window and ptui the offending candy out of our mouths and into traffic BUT I DIGRESS)

Okay, it probably wasn’t really a candy dish.  It was probably meant for something boring like coins.  But c’mon, CANDY.

(a brief mention of the Mazda 323 – I drove it on a fairly regular basis and I counted it as one of my fourteen cars just so that I can recount the following story.  The aforementioned husband (at the time) worked at Domino’s and one night his coworkers covered the car, like COVERED it, with refrigerator magnets for Domino’s.  He did not tell me this and I only discovered it the next morning when I left the house for school (college, not high school, I did not get married THAT young) and had to drive that car to campus and then park it on campus and walk away from it on campus and return to it on campus and let me tell you everyone on campus was VERY AWARE of that vehicle and all the magnets)

Eventually the husband (at the time) and I split and I retained custody of the car and Krumpet and I had many grand adventures in that car (but those are stories for later) until the morning I was awoken by one of my roommates knocking on my bedroom door and saying “The police are on the phone and want to know if you have seen your car?” which I think is kind of a silly question because the police KNEW where my car was, it was on fire somewhere in Northern Baltimore County which is NOT where I had parked it when I went to bed that night.

So that was the end of that car.

After that was a very old Honda Civic that I bought for $500.00 and drove for a few months until I was sideswiped by a school bus.  My insurance company totaled it and gave me as check for $1400.00 but let me keep the car – so I kept driving it AND turned a profit.

From there I went through several vehicles in quick succession, all supplied by my children’s father.  Another Honda Civic with brakes prone to failure at the worst moments. An Audi with more problems that I can list but most amusingly, air conditioning that would only work when making right turns.  A Volkswagen Passat which was in the shop more often than not and I will never again own a European car thankyewverymuch.  And Honda Accord that was rear ended – we took the insurance check on that one but never fixed it (hey, we had two young kids by then and were struggling DON’T YOU JUDGE ME!) so the trunk never quite closed right, but at least I was able to drive that car until our third child came around and we decided we needed a minivan.

I don’t think anything bad ever happened to the minivan (a Toyota Previa if you’re keeping track at home).  I drove it until eventually the baby daddy and I separated and he started seeing someone new and it made sense for his new wife to have the minivan since the kids lived with them so I bought my first ever brand new car all by myself with no help from no one no where!

That car was a 2003 Hyundai Accent and was less calamity prone than some of the others except I got sideswiped once by a driver that did not stop so my insurance company paid out for the damage less some massive deductible because I did not file a police report but the only real damage to my car was a large scrape down the side and a driver’s side door that was a little creaky about opening but I just took the check and did not get it fixed (hey, I was going to Vegas that month and needed wanted the spending money DON’T YOU JUDGE ME) (and holy run on sentence Batman!)

But then, in 2007, I was living in Baltimore City with my soon to be husband (at the time) and the Hyundai Accent.  It was a Wednesday morning – THREE DAYS BEFORE OUR WEDDING - I woke up, got dressed, went to the lot where I parked my car overnight….and it wasn’t there.  I thought it had been stolen, I filed a police report, I got a rental car, found out the next day it had been towed for unpaid parking tickets. 

Now let me talk about those tickets for a moment.   I was aware of them before this but neither my car nor myself were at the location where the tickets were supposedly issued at the time they were issued.  My car and I were at my office, in a whole ‘nother county.  I had documentation of that fact.  When the citation for the unpaid tickets first came in the mail, months prior to the towing,  I called a friend of mine who worked in the Mayor’s Office, he put me in touch with someone else, that person assured me everything would be taken care of and I didn’t need to worry about it.  AND I BELIEVED HIM.

So when my car went missing THREE DAYS BEFORE OUR WEDDING it didn’t even occur to me to think “towed”.  So the insurance company called me that Thursday, TWO DAYS BEFORE OUR WEDDING, and said “Um yeah, your car was not stolen, it was towed because you are a deadbeat who did not pay your parking tickets and we’re going to need you to return that rental vehicle that we are paying for and do it now” so TWO DAYS BEFORE OUR WEDDING the soon to be husband (at the time) and I were scrambling trying to get to city hall, pay the (bogus) tickets, get a release form, get to the tow yard and get my car back and did I mention said soon to be husband (at the time) DID NOT DRIVE?  (oh and yeah, once I paid the parking tickets I was no longer able to dispute them and me, bitter? NAH)

But there is a silver lining because I fell IN LOVE with the rental car I had for one glorious day and in 2008 I upgraded from the Accent to a shiny new Hyundai Elantra just like the one I had rented, and this is where y’all are going to think I am a raging idiot so buckle in.

So it is 2011, I have this Hyundai Elantra, I am no longer married to the soon to be husband (at the time), and I am working two jobs, a full time office job and an almost full time night job slinging pizzas, and by slinging, I mean doing a FUCKTON of driving.  Vroom vroom motherfuckers.

I was on a delivery late one night and my oil light went on.  I finished my delivery, got back to the store, tried to pop my hood to add some oil, hood wouldn’t pop.  Huh.  I went inside, told my manager what was going on, he tried to pop my hood, still wouldn’t pop.  He said, “Don’t worry about it, I had my oil light on for months with my last car, get back on the road”.  So I did.

And I continued to not worry about it until I was driving north up 83, from Baltimore to York, PA, 70 miles per hour, when my engine exploded.  I mean, it wasn’t all fiery and dramatic but it was very loud and the car was very dead.   And, much like the inconvenient timing with the Accent, this happened a week before I was scheduled to have fairly major surgery and be out of commission for a month.  Plus, I was living in a cave at the time.  So.  No car + not working + living in a cave = I went a little mental.

(okay, disclosures, it wasn’t THAT bad.  I stayed with my folks for a few days post-surgery and it wasn’t REALLY a cave I was living in, it was a basement apartment that was always very cold so it felt like a cave, but still, I was all aloney on my owny down there during most of my convalescence and also doped up on painkillers and WHEE what a ride that was!)

But after a few weeks, I got off the pills, got a new-to-me car got back to work, got back to slinging pizzas, got back to life, say hallelujiah!

That car was another Hyundai Accent and I’ll be honest, I hated that car.  I still had loan payments on the Elantra I had killed so once I was lucid again following my surgery (which took a few days - the return to lucidity I mean, not the surgery, man multi day surgery would suck, yeah?) I called CarMax and told them I needed the cheapest car on the lot.  I bought the damn thing without even driving it first.( I am not sure whether I even looked at in in person, sheesh!) and, I mean, it wasn’t a BAD car.  It was just ugly and no frills and BORING.  A basic econobox.  But it got the job done and at that point in my life, it kinda matched my lifestyle.  I was in a bad place, working 80 hours a week, still not able to make ends meet, drinking too much, indulging too much, living off of pizza and whatever I could scrounge up from 7-11 on my way home at 2am, once passing out in a friend’s basement in what I thought at the time was a pile of clothes but actually turned out to be a pile of trashbags.  Yeah.  Those were my dark years.  Not that there weren’t good times as well, but a lot of those good times were based on bad behavior.

But I’m not talking about that.  This is not an autobiography by way of cars.  OH SNAP!  WAIT, IT IS!  AUTO-biography.  It IS an autobiography.  Hee hee hee, I slay me.

ANYWAY.  I managed to hold on to that car for over five years.  I kept up on my oil changes but the engine always had a mysterious ticking noise that disturbed me.  And, it ate tires.  I blew five tires in one twelve month span.  But overall, it did me pretty well and I paid off the loan so there’s that.  I also met the husband and turned my life around and things got better and not dark and depressing and shameful and I decided to upgrade again to a Hyundai Elantra.

Yeah.  That Elantra lasted three months but IT WASN’T MY FAULT THIS TIME I SWEAR!  I was on my way to work, on the Baltimore Beltway, minding my own business, eyes on the road, traffic stopped suddenly ahead, *I* was paying attention and stopped on time and as soon as I did my eyes went to my rear view and I saw the car behind me NOT SLOWING DOWN and I had time to brace myself before she slammed into me and pushed me into the car in front of me who went into the car in front of her.  I blacked out for a few seconds I guess because next thing I know the drivers of the other three cars were standing on the side of the road and I crawled out of my car from the passenger side and immediately this woman came running up to me “OMG I’m so sorry, are you okay, can I give you a hug?” and I was very dazed and confused but nothing seemed broken so I accepted the hug but it still took me a while to figure out wtf was happening.

So my car was totaled, her car was totaled, I think the car in front of mine was totaled, I got a concussion and all because this woman was FUSSING WITH HER PHONE WHILE ACCELERATING ONTO THE HIGHWAY.  People.  DO NOT TEXT AND DRIVE. 

After that, I decided Hyundai Elantras were cursed for me.  Great cars but both of mine had come to tragic ends so it was time to try a new model.   (Worth noting, the husband’s car seems to also be cursed, although it is NOT an Elantra, it is a Chevy Cruze and is in the shop an average of once per quarter.  My husband HAAAAATES that car.  Just this past week he was trying to replace the headlights which should be a fairly simple task but [insert car talk here about engine blocks and stuff] and he said that if he ever met the guy who designed the Cruze he would make sure he was tortured for all eternity.  But Husband and Roommate together managed to replace the headlights (I helped!  I held the flashlight!) although Roommate did snap off something from the interior that we HOPE wasn’t important and Roommate feels really badly for breaking the car but we are planning on buying a new one in a few months anyway BUT I DIGRESS)

So, new model time!  I went back to CarMax, found a Kia Optima, low mileage, lots of frills.  It’s a good car!  I’ve had it for about two and a half years now, nothing bad has happened, but my check engine light went on about two weeks ago.  We took it in to Auto Zone, they read the codes, we determined it needs a new O2 sensor so at least it is not an urgent issue and I am going to take it in to have the work down in two weeks so everything should be fine right?  (Please reassure me, I am afraid).  While at Auto Zone we bought new windshield wipers which the husband installed while I sat in the house, reading trashy magazines and eating bon-bons, as a break from my typical sandwich making activities.  He came inside, looking all kinds of sheepish and said, “Your windshield was cracked already, right?”

No.  NO IT WAS NOT.  “What did you do???” I asked, but he seemed so contrite and apologetic I let it go.  I wasn’t about to get into it with him over a small crack and if it was something major I knew him well enough to know he would take care of having it fixed.  Ya gots to pick your battles folks, and I love the man more than I love the car.

So I continued eating magazines and reading bon-bons until the roommate came upstairs and I said, “I hate to tell you this but Imma hafta break your car”.  Of course he wanted to know why so I told him, “Well, you broke my husband’s car and he just broke mine, so now I have to break yours it’s the Ciiiiiiircle of Cars!” and just then the husband came into the kitchen so I told him I was going to break Roommate’s car and explained why and husband said “What are you talking about there is nothing wrong with your car I did not break it” and I said, “But the windshield….” And he just smirked at me because he did not break my windshield, he was pulling my leg the whole time because he is an asshole.  So I punched him.

I hope his next car is an Elantra.

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