We all remember our firsts. There's just something about it that makes it somehow more speical, more memorable. Our first kiss, first love, first heart break, first job, first paycheck, first back account (and therefore credit card), first car, first car wreck. And isn't it funny how they seem to occur many at a time? I can't tell you about my first car without telling you about a few other things in the process. So, grab a stogie, a piece of chocolate, and a glass of pomegrante wine, sit back and relax for a few!

I was about to turn sixteen and I had gotten a job at the local mall, selling ceramic figures that people could paint. I also managed to get a job at the movie theatre in the opposite wing. I hated the ceramics shop, but I loved the theatre, mostly because at the ceramics shop I had rules and regulations to follow and at the movie theatre, I ate popcorn and smoked cigarettes with the oh-so-delicious manager who hired me because I wore a low cut shirt to my job interview and leaned over his desk giggling a lot. Needless to say, the ceramics shop didn't last long. But, I got to use my first checks to open a bank account, into which I poured every penny I had in the hopes of saving enough money to buy a car, and all the uber-cool accessories to go with it.

Within a few months I had around a thousand dollars saved and one of the local car dealerships was advertising their "Slasher Sale" claiming that cars would be sold for "As low as $86.00"! So, my mom and I showed up at the butt-crack of dawn and started trolling the lot. We found a cute little car that I thought suited me perfectly. It was marked at $2600 and had been slashed to $1300 so we figured we could talk them down a bit to keep it in my price range. Sales man after sales man came up to us, handing out business cards like candy. One guy in particular, Ron Kars (not even kidding that's his real name), seemed to be a really nice, genuine kind of guy, so we decided that we would deal with him. Another sales man, Jay Coo (also not playing that's his real name too), came up and threw a screaming hissy fit about Ron "stealing" his customers. It was quite the scene and it ended with me telling him to sit his whiny ass down and shut the hell up before broke his damned jaw.

Once the "slasher sale" really got started, everyone was in a frenzy, running here and there, marking cars down, auction-style, there was clapping and screaming and jumping and running and it was beautiful chaos at its finest. They go to me and I looked at the guy holding the marker, and I said, "I'm one of the last cars here....and none have been sold for that $86.00....so I'll give you $86.00 for this car." The whole place went up in a frenzy. He started listing the reasons that the car was worth more, so I looked him in the eye, and said, "Pop the hood, let's take a look." Everybody really lost it this time. Here was a female, sixteen, in hooker boots, a skirt, and a screen t-shirt that said, "I love my attitude problem" offering to climb under the hood of a car. He was speechless and simply pulled the lever. I raised the hood and started rattling off all the things I needed to fix, and next thing I know, he's going, "$100, sold!" And I'm physically fighting with a grown man to be the first to honk the horn and therefore accept the purchase price.

Now for the funny part....see, at the time, I was not mechanically inclined in the least....as a matter of fact, I had to call my grandfather a week later to ask him where the gas went in....but he didn't know that. My uncles and grandfather were carpenters and mechanics by trade, so I just threw out words that I knew would get his attention. So, by the end of the day, I had purchased a candy apple red 1992 Toyota Paseo with 145,000 miles on it for $300 including liscense, title, and taxes. It was a beautiful day....until I got in and realized that it was a stick shift, which I had no idea how to drive. But hey, I've always been a quick study, so no problems....until my mom informs me that I have 2 hours till I have to be at work and the only way I'm getting there is to either learn how to drive my car or walk. HARUMPH! But, it was just exactly what I needed to get my lazy butt in gear (no pun intended). Sure enough, I learned how to make it function good enough to get me to work and back, and within the week, I was driving it like I had never known anything else.

The funny thing about not knowing things is that if you don't know you can't do it, you think you can. As I said, I was not mechanically inclined, but I had watched "The Fast and The Furious" so I thought all stick shift cars were supposed to run like the amazing pieces of machinery in that movie. Before long, I was racing on my lunch breaks. That car may have been a piece of crap, but no body told me that, so me and my car beat the best and brightest right off the assembly line. It was exactly a quarter of a mile from the stop light outside my work to the next stop light, another quarter mile to the next one, and a half mile to the third. I would beat brand new mustangs off the line, quarter mile, half mile, mile, flip a bitch in the intersection and flip the other driver off on the way back. One day, a very irate loser followed me back to my job, and demanded that I pop my hood. Apparently he had just dropped a wad of cash on his machine and he was righteously pissed that I beat him. I will never forget the look on his face when he discovered that I was running straight stock parts. Remember folks, it's not all about what the car has, it's also about what you have.

My first fender-bender occured the first night I had it, and yes, it was a hit-and-run. I was backing out of a driveway and hit a parked car. There was no damage to the other car, so I took off. About a month later, I hit my friend's truck (once again no damage to the other car) while we were parking to go get pizza. Then three months after I purchased the car, I was involved in a three-car pile-up. I was trying to switch lanes and thought I was in the clear only to have some a-hole come flying up behind me honking like a maniac. So, I decided to stay in my lane. I was checking my mirrors like I was told a good driver should when suddenly I saw brake lights. The only thing I could think was "Clutch, brake, neutral!" My car did a nose dive and went under the back of a ford focus who hit the lincoln in front of him. Once again there was no damage to any car but mine. It was crumpled like an accordian. I was hysterical and incosolable. My elbow still gives me trouble six years later because I stiff-armed the wheel. And I know, I know, you're all thinking, "Stupid woman driver!" but in my defense, I did not know at the time that the clutch was completely gone. The first two accidents I had were because the gears didn't shift when I thought they should have, which I know now is because the clutch was shot. So there!

My car afforded me so much freedom....I did some things that I'm not proud of, and a lot of things that I look back on fondly. It gave me a way to be with the first love of my life, to be with my friends, to go to work and school, to skip school, to do the things that I wanted to do. And for that, I will be eternally grateful. To me, my first car wasn't just a car, it was a way of life.