When I turned 19, I decided it was finally time to get my driver’s liscence and buy a car. I remember thinking, “I’m gonna get a 4×4 truck or a nice Jeep!” Then I came home one day and my sweet mother had bought me this exact car. A 1979 Dodge Colt, lemon yellow (and a lemon, it was) with ugly black racing stripes. Not to mention I didn’t know how to drive a stick. After 2 months, that car was dead. I had rode the clutch and grinded gears so much, it couldn’t have lasted much longer than that anyway. That poor car went through hell with me behind the wheel.
To start with, not a week into owning it, my genius boyfriend put diesel in it. Need I say more? After that was fixed, we proceeded to take it 4×4-ing out in the boonies, getting it high-centered and having to walk 5 miles back to town to call a tow truck. Fun fun. And last, but not the only other thing that I did to that poor car, the town I lived in had one main road with a big hill seperating the two sides of town. Be it bad driving or dead car, I couldn’t make it up that hill and proceeded to roll backwards, screaming at the people behind me to get out of the way. Looking back on that now, I laugh of course, but at the time…well…I’m sure you can imagine. I was so embarrassed, I called my poor mother and chewed her out for putting me through such hell. It was all her fault for buying the stupid thing!! Ten years and a couple of cars later, I’ve made peace with my mom, stopped 4×4-ing with vehicles that aren’t supposed to 4×4, and become a much better driver!
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