Goodbye to my little blue shitbox

That's what Brian has affectionately called my Saturn Coupe ever since I got it in the summer of 2002. He hated driving it, riding in it and especially getting peed on in it. But more on that in a bit.

But I enjoyed my little shitbox. It got great gas mileage, it never posed any mechanical or engine problems, I loved the color and it got me from point A to point B just fine. It served me very well for nearly seven years and 92,000 miles. And while I'm glad I splurged for the sunroof upgrade on my first new car, the Saturn eventually made me realize I'm a pretty simple girl and special bells and whisltes on a car aren't really worth it, to me.

I'm not an overly sentimental person when it comes to old or new cars, but I thought it appropriate to write this post so that someday baby boy can see what mom drove the year he arrived, and the new family car he necessitated.

A few memories of my blue shitbox...

The "tanbark incident," when, the summer after I made my first big solo investment, I returned home from a bar early one Saturday morning (read: around 2 a.m.) in dense fog. The low-hanging fog on the road (not a fog in my alcohol-affected head, as family members still argue) prevented me from seeing a HUGE pile of tanbark in the middle of the road leading up the hill to my parents' house. So I hit it and got stuck. Took me about an hour to dig my front tires out of the stuff, and I sacrificed a really cute tank top to free my shitbox. The next morning the damage to my car and the size of the pile of tanbark obstructing the road became clear. Thankfully, the guy who had the stuff dumped in the road put up little resistance and anted up more than a grand to help pay for the damage to my car.

The trip home from North Carolina one summer, when, because I was determined to get home early I left on my own and without Brian, who rode home with his parents. I got so miserably lost he beat me home by an hour or so.

Of course the cat pee incident, as we began our trek to the cottage ahead of Jess and Dave and Kristen and Wolf in the summer of 2006. We had just gotten on the road and Brian was driving, when Spike jumped up on the headrest behind my passenger seat and peed on my shoulder. Brian thought it was HILARIOUS. Then not five minutes later, Spike jumped over to his headrest and unleashed an impressive stream of hot cat piss right down his back. He didn't think it was so funny anymore. So 15 minutes into our seven-hour trip we had to pull into the truckstop on Rt. 39 and try to corral two cats while we struggled to dig new t-shirts out of our carefully packed luggage. The blue shitbox smelled of cat urine for the rest of the trip and weeks afterward.

On the way home from that same trip (at least we had fun in between long drives), my tire went flat four miles away from the cottage. So we had to pull over at the end of the dirt road, unpack ALL THE CRAP in my trunk to dig out the spare tire, then replace the flat with the spare. Again, all while corraling two cats curiously jumping around the inside of the car. We drove a few miles down the road to Canadian Tire and watched in amusement as the garage put the blue shitbox up on the lift while the cats watched out the windows. How many cats get to experience a tire replacement first-hand?

And more recently, the body damage I did this past fall, pulling into our own garage. I cut it a little too close on the left, side swiped my car and broke a pretty sizable chunk of wood off the garage door frame that was just put on the house in January 2008.

Looking back, each of these memories now makes me smile, as I realize experiences with my little blue shitbox taught me valuable lessons about patience, composure and taking the little stuff in stride.

I hope my little blue shitbox can offer a new owner the same dependability and insight it gave me.

How fitting that just as I snapped a last piture of the first car I bought and paid for by myself, our new car drove into the frame, having just come from the car wash. That's our Rav4, pulling up just behind my old car.