First cars grow on us

“I need a new parking sticker,” I told the woman atthe Park n’ Pony desk.

“To add a car?” she asked.

I took a deep breath. “No. To replace it.”

I think that was the moment it finally set in. After four years,I had finally replaced my first car.

“That’s how I felt about selling my Big BlueBox,” a friend told me. He used to drive a ’90 ToyotaCamry wagon that was literally shaped like a box. He had pictureson his laptop of him and his friends hugging the car hood, biddingfarewell to their four-wheeled friend.

He now has a ‘97 Camry. For a time, he called it,”The Replacement.”

Another friend drove a manual ’89 Saab sedan. He said heliked that car a lot, but it had a series of mechanical problems.When the radiator stopped working three years ago, and he had todrive during a Texas summer with the heater on full blast to pullthe hot air out of the engine bay, he sold it.

He now drives a 2001 Corolla with a hole in the front wheresomeone ripped off his Toyota emblem.

One of my best friends still drives her first car, an ’89Corolla. The front passenger door doesn’t open, the sun haseaten most of the paint down to the primer, and the air conditioneronly works if the car is in motion. She told me that it will be asad day when she has to let that car go. It was, after all, thefirst car her family owned when they came to America from thePhilippines.

I drove a ‘93 Toyota Camry. It bugged me that all the guysreferred to their cars as “she” or “her,”so I decided to take route of the battleship Bismarck crew andrefer to my baby as “him.”

He was a gift from my father (Christmas, birthday, AND highschool graduation combined). I remember the moment he handed me thekeys and the title.

The Camry had his flaws. His tires were bald, his front platewas missing, he had scratches, nicked paint, minor hail damage, andone of his hubcaps didn’t match the other three. He had thesmell of Vietnamese food in the upholstery and 183,000+ miles onhis engine.

But he was mine, and a little vacuuming, a new set of tires, andan industrial-sized bottle of Febreeze later, he was ready to hitthe road.

I think about how that car took me to school, then to orchestrarehearsal, later to work and finally back home everyday during mylast year in high school.

When I lived in the dorms, he took me home every weekend forlaundry, mom’s cooking and Sunday morning service.

I commuted last year. He endured the heat and the cold on thehighways and during rush hour.

And then there was the time I went to see Beauty and the Beastat Dallas Summer Musicals two year ago. After the play, I got lostin the less pleasant parts of Downtown Big D for almost an hour inthe dark and on less than an quarter tank of gas. Suffice it tosay, I was happy to make it home that night without gettingshot.

I was also happy to make it safely off the highway on sheermomentum when the radiator split and the car died at 60 mph on 635.I had taken the wrong exit and rather than landing on the tollway,I was able to cruise off the road and right into the parking lot ofa truck dealership.

“Looks like you made it just in time!” One of thesales guys joked when he and three of his co-workers kindly pushthe car out of the parking lot entrance and into an actual parkingspot.

The Camry survived flat tires, dead batteries, a split radiator,a broken distributor, low Freon, oil leaks and a score of otherdramas.

But the final blow came when the crankshaft pulley came out onmy way to class a month ago.

I wasn’t going to be able to save him this time.

With a little bit of a heavy heart, I handed the title and keythat my father had placed in my hands four years earlier to amechanic in Frisco, and he handed me a check.

The woman at Park ‘n Pony said she understood as she gaveme a new parking decal. Her first car was a yellow Mustang, and shehad a rude surprise when she came home one day to find that her dadsold it.

First cars are funny machines.

We remember sitting behind the wheel while friends and familyfilled the passenger seats.

We remember random people honking at us because the car chalk onthe windows read, “Honk! I’m 20!”

We remember vacuuming dog hair from the seats and carpet andwiping puppy nose prints from the windows.

We remember first cars because they are the first, my dad toldme.

He’s right.

Even if I do get my dream car someday, it will never have thesame value or character as that little sedan.

Christine Dao is a senior journalism major. She may becontacted at [email protected].