you may recall the long post of some weeks ago wherein the sad sad story of Hal was relayed. If not, that right there should be a link. This is the continuation of three reasons why I should stop wasting my money on cars and use it instead for tsunami relief or more shoes.

And also, this is timely. Current car is getting new brakes today.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, ERINIRE PRESENTS:

After collecting the paltry cash afforded me by my insurance company and coupling it with my takings from graduation, I had a very small amount of money for a down payment on a car. Does anyone but me remember how sad it was to graduate college? I counted down the days like time before my execution, knowing that LIFE WILL NEVER BE THIS GOOD AGAIN OH GOD AAA NO. Allow me to spare you the bone-crushing agony of car shopping during those last few weeks before all my best friends left me alone and car-less in a city with abysmal public transit. Allow me to spare you the pain of making the deal with a boy I LOVED MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF AND HES LEAVING OH GOD AAA NO AAA NO. And you can also allow me to spare you the absolute craven stupidity with which we made the deal. (JUST KIDDING!!! The deal is an integral foreshadowing of what is to come in part 3!!!) Despite my best precautions; online comparisons, blue-book research, even the presence of testosterone by my side on the dealership floor, i was hornswaggled into a lease. And for the record?

Maybe I was stoned, maybe I was in trauma, I don’t know, but either way I had a sinking feeling about the whole deal. Nevertheless, I drove away owning my VERY OWN 2001 Focus. (Except for how, you know, I didn’t really own it because it was a LEASE. dumb girl.)

Sad sad, days passed, my friends left, there was much drinking of Labbatt’s and crying of tears and then like a feather on the breeze they were gone. I settled into my VERY OWN apartment (Except for, you know, how I was subletting it from a friend who was renting it from a landlord who was using the rent to pay off his uncle). I made new friends and tried to forget about the boy and drank vodka a lot in this bar downtown. So i was driving en route to said bar one night, inhaling the sweet perfume of a brand-new car, windows down, summer breeze in my hair, thinking “hey, this not being in college thing isn’t so bad this is kind of- SHIT”

NOISES and SQUEALING and CRASHING and then a long long horn as my car was spun around 180 degrees in the intersection. the other car swiveled, hit a third car at the other stop sign, and came to a violent rest at the feet of a telephone pole. Glass was everywhere. One kid was bleeding. One girl was crying. My car, my beautiful blue 4-door Focus that i had bought with all my worldly goods a mere 14 days ago, was almost unrecognizable. The headlights were weirdly twisted, crosseyed, and one mirror was missing. The hood had crumpled like a cheap piano bench. My door wouldn’t shut. My hands were shaking.

i guess the cops came, it’s sort of a blur really, but what happened was that the other car had blasted through a stop sign at about 40 mph, I hit his tail as he sped through, causing him to spin into the parked car and shatter all his windows.

what did I do? Well, I did what any red-blooded 21-year-old female WOULD do! I called up my friend, had her pick me up, and proceeded to my bar where I would ply many expensive drinks from attractive men with the horrid story of my first new car.