Can You See Them?

I had to turn in my old lease and get a new car this week and it was quite a traumatic experience. Ok, I might be slightly exaggerating but I was downsizing from a cute crossover to a sedan. A friggin sedan. What’s next, the soccer mom haircut without the soccer kids? Anyway, I was trying to make the best of the situation and find all the silver linings to a new vehicle when I started to think about cars of my past and how awesome they were. How could this new one ever live up?

My first car that was mine and by mine I mean I was the primary driver was a 1992 red Ford Probe that we called “Little Red Ford Probe” since it rhymed so well with a great Prince song and it was 1994. Her name was Baby and I have to tell you that this car rocked. I may have been ruined for life as no other car could ever match the fun times, complete hysterics and non-monetary features that the LRFP had.

For example, there were people that lived in my car. Yes, people we called Them. Why you ask? Simple, think of the Pearl Jam song “Yellow LedBetter” and the line that says “can you see them, out on the porch but they don’t wave.” To be fair, we were 17/18, Eddie Vedder was hot and so was a guy in class that was obsessed with him so we may have had a few too many giggles over coming up with this. My good friend C (the co-queen of Slurpees) helped come up with the name and to this day we still laugh about it.

For the most part, the people were pretty cool. They’d be helpful and turn the radio station or make sure my lights were on, things like that. But they could also be vindictive little buggers. They apparently wanted C to stop smoking as they’d steal her cigarettes. Other odd items like tapes(!) would go missing. A scraper here or there and at least a few items of clothing that I’m not completely sure how they were left but they were and went missing too. And change? Don’t even think there’d be anything left. It sometimes made crossing the border to go to Canada for a few refreshments an interesting experience. Again, this was the age where hanging out at Denny’s was the perfect end to an evening.

Oh, and the people migrated to the next vehicle, my little Billy Girl Truck. She was a good sport (and had a few minor run ins with poles in carports) but there weren’t the great stories like the LRFP. And it was a truck. Minus the sandbags I had to buy in the winter to even out weight it was a great little vehicle. Too bad I ran it in to the ground.

Next were the two Mariners (both white, both looking the same and they were Ghost One and Ghost 2). I got my groove back with them and the last few years were great feeling like I was in a cool car (legitimate moonroof, not fake one you make by taking the sunroof out) and I had room for people, lawn chairs, moving 17 times. It was all good again. And with the advent of a six-disc CD changer, who could ask for anything more?

As for my new car, it doesn’t have a name and as of yet doesn’t have a personality that it’s shown (at least not yet). Perhaps she (he?) just needs to warm up to me a bit. I mean, that should be easy with remote start and all but I’m trying to remain positive. Who knows, maybe if I just get a Slurpee and play some Pearl Jam things will work out…