The Yellow Car

I have been reminiscing. I just found this picture and had to scan it to share with you all. This is The Yellow Car (A.K.A. Turbo Girl): the first car that I ever drove. (In the front here is my adorable nephew Coleman. This was a several years ago). She is no longer with us. She lived a long and productive life, transporting us around town, learning how to drive, getting us back and forth to college, impressing my guy friends when I would need a jump start after leaving my lights on, with her Turbo engine…

I still have my keys to The Yellow Car. One is still on my key ring, and the other (this particular key that you see) is in the hide-a-key magnet that used to be under the bumper (we won't talk about how many times I actually used that useful invention). It is a particularly good magnet for holding recipes on the vent hood when I am cooking. I can’t seem to get rid of these keys. The Yellow Car passed away when Jack and I were living in Vancouver. That was well, so many years ago. Mom and dad purchased the car when I was 12 years old. That was, well, so many years ago, I will let you guess at the math. I first drove The Yellow Car when I was 13. I will never forget that day. It was a Sunday and we were coming home from church. Dad pulled into our alley way and stopped the car so I could drive it up behind the garage. I remember exactly what I was wearing. My pink and white store bought dress that I had picked out for my 13^th birthday. It had shoulder pads (what didn’t have shoulder pads in the 80s), and the leaf design on it made me think of deer tracks. I had on black heels. How did that happen? A light pink dress and black heels? I digress (that one is for you, Dani).

I was recently reading about Learning and Memory… and it mentioned episodic memory (dang, well, I think it is episodic memory) when trying to recall where you last left your keys. The author wrote that unless you have an emotional attachment to your keys, you are not likely to use emotional memory to find them. I would argue that I do have an emotional attachment to my keys. Goodness, I still have the Yellow Car key and no Yellow Car. Plus I have a Snoopy key chain I bought in Sendai, Japan (or was it Fukushima City?) that I have been carrying around for the last ten years… anyway.

My car that I have now still has no name. I am close to picking one, but nothing seems to fit yet. Brady calls my car “mommy’s car.” But then, every PT Cruiser he sees is a “mommy’s car.” I will let you know if I ever come up with something. It seems a shame. We have had this car since 31 December 2004... anyway.

When my sister and I used to drive this car to school guess how much gas cost? You might want to hold onto your chair. We complained repeatedly about it. If we had only known what we know now, we could have stocked up! There was a time we could fill the tank for $10. Then it went up to $1.32 a gallon and well, we would have to break an extra $5 or, heaven forbid, a $20. I am *gasping* for breath. Jack told me the other day that now, when he fills the tank, he stops at *gasp* $50. whether or not it is full.