Car troubles

The first was a navy blue Windstar. Her windows were the ones in which I was always pinching my fingers. Her door was the one I nearly squished my brother in (though really, it didn’t even get close). Her battery was the one that died on the side of the road in Cadillac on a hot summer night. Between the relentless mosquitoes outside and stifling heat inside, my siblings and I thought we were going to die there (to clarify - we most definitely weren’t).

That trip was her last, as she was soon succeeded by a steel gray Explorer. Her radio was the one we used to tune to that silly kids channel. Her heated seats were our first experience of such a novelty. Her front right wheel was the one that ran over the dog (though miraculously, the dog was unscathed). When her battery adapter died, my dad replaced it - but immediately started looking for our next car.

That one was another Explorer, dark blue but not quite navy. Her backup camera is the one that died on the day of my driving test. Her seatbelt buckle was the one that the new puppy chewed and rendered nearly useless. Her steering wheel is the one I gripped, white-knuckled, as I drove myself to field hockey practice for the first time, feeling the terrifying weight of new responsibility and crying as I mourned the childhood I was leaving behind. That Explorer still lives at home, but I don’t anymore, so I don’t see her nearly as often as I used to.

Nowadays, “she” is a Ford Flex; gray and toaster-shaped, she's distinctive in all of her boxy glory. Her rear bumper is the one I bashed into a trailer my first time backing down the driveway alone. Her footwell is the one with the Michigan floor mat, placed there by my grandmother when she owned this vehicle. Her backseat is the one that I packed my life into the August before moving to my college dorm, and then packed it back into the following April (far more independent but a little less self assured) for summer break.

I’m not a car person. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t loved a few cars.