By G.
Have you ever driven your brand new car to the office and parked it next to a load-bearing column in the parking garage? Then, ten hours later, you were so excited to be getting the h*ck out of there that you forgot you parked next to a load-bearing column? So you cranked the wheel hard to the left and got ready to gun it out of there, but then you were thwarted by the load-bearing column that mercilessly scraped the ever-living shit out of the driver’s side of your brand new car?
Me neither.
As I was reflecting on this totally hypothetical experience that definitely didn’t happen to me, I recalled the other cars I’ve crunched before—each one a black hole in the chaotic constellation of my life’s most “WHYYY?!” moments.
The Star Car (Summer 2003): It was on a sleepy off-ramp in Bountiful, Utah. The sedan ahead of me turned right, so I looked left while letting my foot off the gas to follow her. Did you know that sometimes, even when people are turning right onto a road on which nothing is rolling but tumbleweeds, they will simply stop mid-turn? This was the day I learned that. Luckily, the sedan drove off and the Star Car—which some lucky caller won at the end of the summer—was made of slap bracelet material. All we had to do was pop that puppy back into place and the winner was none the wiser.
The Camry (Spring 2005): My first car. My first car. The one I bought with my own money. One-thousand dollars of it—one-hundred dollars at a time—from my ex-boyfriend’s dad. For the life of me, I can not remember the nature of the fender-bender in West Hollywood that day. I couldn’t tell you whose fault it was. But I can tell you that I jumped out of my car and called “Are you OK?” at the same time as the young woman about my age jumped out of her car and yelled the same thing. Then, because both of our cars were old and the damage was nowhere to be found, we hugged each other and went our on ways. Later, after a victimless incident in the Target parking lot, I would reattach the side view mirror with six-inch bolts.
Matty, the Matrix (Winter 2008): My first new car was but an infant that Sunday morning when I headed into the newsroom to cover the Oscars that day. I’d only been driving him for three months when that fashion model t-boned him with her boyfriend’s classic Bentley. Matty was too new to be totaled. I paid him off over the next five years while his bones rattled over every speed bump.
Frankie, the Avalon (2008 - 2021): I inflicted countless injuries on Rob’s trusty steed. Mostly on the side-view mirrors and alloy wheels. He deserved so much better. But I like to think we learned a lot together, like how hot black leather interior gets in the summer (very!) and how many years you can safely drive with a slow oil leak (a lot!).
Bernie Sanders, the Prius (2019): Named for being very old, very white, and free to us (thanks, mom and dad!) I ripped up not one but TWO of his doors by trying to pull out behind a pick-up truck to the left-hand turn lane literally .2 miles from my house. My victim and I pulled over onto a side street, I gave him my insurance info, and he never followed up. I thank this man in my nightly prayers, and Bernie still bears the scars as a reminder of how damn lucky I got that day.
Thanks to pandemic supply chain issues, it’ll be another month before the auto body shop takes my $2500 and turns it into a shiny new car door. So, if you see a sad lady with bangs driving around in a crunched-up CRV, say hi! Ask me what happened and all you’ll get is a blank stare and a shrug, because it certainly wasn’t me dragging my car’s side-ass against a concrete pillar at 5:45 on a Thursday. But with a track record like this, I suppose it could have been.