Prompt: "A song about a vehicle"
Selected by Joe
"Cars in Space"
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Sideways to New Italy, 2020
I don't believe in forming emotional bonds with inanimate objects (even though the excellent Toy Story tetralogy did its damnedest to convince me otherwise). Throw out or recycle what you don't need—minimalization is key. If Pam wants to take the dresser drawers that I've had since I was five years old and tear off the handles and paint it and repurpose it for storage in the basement, I don't give a fuck. Seriously.
So I don't want it to seem like I have those feelings for my first (and, depending on how you look at it, only) automobile. I have great memories in that car, and I am grateful for its existence, and I like the fact that I had that typical "teenage experience" of owning my own car and experiencing that very specific brand of freedom, albeit a bit late (purchased at the age of 20). But I don't want you to think that I, like, miss it or anything. I didn't need to name it. It's an inanimate object. The idea of singing a song about an inanimate object like a car makes me fucking cringe worse than a Nick Kroll standup routine.
My first (only) car was a 1991 Toyota Camry. It was baby blue. I purchased it secondhand from some dude on my dad's mail route (I think). Maybe I paid $950 for it? The understanding was that I would just be driving it back and forth from school.
Unfortunately, earlier in the summer, my plans to live off-campus crumbled due to a bedbug-related snafu, and after a few last-minute hail marys yielded no results, I succumbed to the idea of commuting to college during my junior year. A small and quiet part of my brain still regrets the decision. There were options, I just didn't take them because of money reasons. Except that I had the money from student loans. In retrospect, using the money and getting fucked just a little harder after graduation by Navient would've probably been worth it for the potential shenanigans we could've gotten into on Woodstock St. one year earlier. But it's all good. I grew close to the pals who housed me on the weekends, and I was able to sleep in the solitude of Rockledge and get some real rest during the week, and I bought a car.
My Camry was a workhorse, and mostly reliable. I trusted it to get me to La Salle. I didn't trust it to get me to the shore. Fuck it—I drove to the shore anyway. The air didn't work that well, but the windows rolled down just fine. The stereo system was newer than '91, origins unknown, and it had an aux cord, which is all I really need. The defroster was shit, and I remember a scary ride back from a NJ movie theater with Pam during a rainstorm. The power steering would cut occasionally, necessitating a quick sojourn at the mechanic. The weirdest anomaly was that the battery would go on the fritz in the rain, if I ever stopped. It would never cut off while in motion, only while at rest. So every time it rained, I'd be jumping out of the car at every red light and jiggling the wires connected to the battery. It'd start right up, but still, a veritable and consistent pain in the ass.
I drank in that car. I smoked in that car. I had sex in that car. I never crashed that car, not fucking once. And it got me where I needed to go.
In early 2012, Pam and I were moving to Las Vegas. It was a temporary move, but still, bringing my car along didn't make much sense. So I gifted the thing to my kid sister, who could use it at her own college (I'm assuming I did my best to clean it first). It served its purpose, and like I said, it's not like I was sad about the car or whatever. It was just some fucking car. It doesn't have feelings for me, nor I for it. The memories remain even as the car drive away from my life.
As a sort of postscript to the tale of the car itself, sis decided to upgrade at a certain point (which was a mistake, since that Camry would've lasted 20 more years, but it wasn't my car and I obviously didn't have nor want a say in the matter), and so she sold it to some other kid who knew a guy who knew a guy (who, let's be honest, was most likely on my dad's mail route). Here's the conclusion of the legend of the baby blue 1991 Toyota Camry, as far as I know it (which may or may not be mythopoeia at this point). So the kid who bought it used it to deliver Domino's pizzas, which means that the car was adorned with the light-up domino logo for a bit. Then, one fateful night (or day, I'm not sure of the details), while delivering pizzas, the Camry was driven straight into the creek. No injuries, I'm told. The car never drove again, but I wouldn't say that the car was "injured," because it's a FUCKING CAR, and can't be injured, for christ's sake.
While living in Vegas, Pam bought her own car, and so I used that thing occasionally, both in Vegas and after we drove it back to Philly. Those were the years before all our assets were permanently combined. We got married and jointly bought an SUV, then we had kids and jointly bought a minivan. This is how life goes in industrial 21st-century America. You mark checkpoints in life with different vehicles. But before and since that Camry, there was never a car that felt like it was "mine." That makes a difference, emotionally, even those emotions had everything to do with me and where I was in my life, and not the car itself. Fuck the car. It could be still rusting in the goddamn creek for all I care. But still... I enjoyed my time with it.
So I don't want it to seem like I have those feelings for my first (and, depending on how you look at it, only) automobile. I have great memories in that car, and I am grateful for its existence, and I like the fact that I had that typical "teenage experience" of owning my own car and experiencing that very specific brand of freedom, albeit a bit late (purchased at the age of 20). But I don't want you to think that I, like, miss it or anything. I didn't need to name it. It's an inanimate object. The idea of singing a song about an inanimate object like a car makes me fucking cringe worse than a Nick Kroll standup routine.
My first (only) car was a 1991 Toyota Camry. It was baby blue. I purchased it secondhand from some dude on my dad's mail route (I think). Maybe I paid $950 for it? The understanding was that I would just be driving it back and forth from school.
Unfortunately, earlier in the summer, my plans to live off-campus crumbled due to a bedbug-related snafu, and after a few last-minute hail marys yielded no results, I succumbed to the idea of commuting to college during my junior year. A small and quiet part of my brain still regrets the decision. There were options, I just didn't take them because of money reasons. Except that I had the money from student loans. In retrospect, using the money and getting fucked just a little harder after graduation by Navient would've probably been worth it for the potential shenanigans we could've gotten into on Woodstock St. one year earlier. But it's all good. I grew close to the pals who housed me on the weekends, and I was able to sleep in the solitude of Rockledge and get some real rest during the week, and I bought a car.
My Camry was a workhorse, and mostly reliable. I trusted it to get me to La Salle. I didn't trust it to get me to the shore. Fuck it—I drove to the shore anyway. The air didn't work that well, but the windows rolled down just fine. The stereo system was newer than '91, origins unknown, and it had an aux cord, which is all I really need. The defroster was shit, and I remember a scary ride back from a NJ movie theater with Pam during a rainstorm. The power steering would cut occasionally, necessitating a quick sojourn at the mechanic. The weirdest anomaly was that the battery would go on the fritz in the rain, if I ever stopped. It would never cut off while in motion, only while at rest. So every time it rained, I'd be jumping out of the car at every red light and jiggling the wires connected to the battery. It'd start right up, but still, a veritable and consistent pain in the ass.
I drank in that car. I smoked in that car. I had sex in that car. I never crashed that car, not fucking once. And it got me where I needed to go.
In early 2012, Pam and I were moving to Las Vegas. It was a temporary move, but still, bringing my car along didn't make much sense. So I gifted the thing to my kid sister, who could use it at her own college (I'm assuming I did my best to clean it first). It served its purpose, and like I said, it's not like I was sad about the car or whatever. It was just some fucking car. It doesn't have feelings for me, nor I for it. The memories remain even as the car drive away from my life.
As a sort of postscript to the tale of the car itself, sis decided to upgrade at a certain point (which was a mistake, since that Camry would've lasted 20 more years, but it wasn't my car and I obviously didn't have nor want a say in the matter), and so she sold it to some other kid who knew a guy who knew a guy (who, let's be honest, was most likely on my dad's mail route). Here's the conclusion of the legend of the baby blue 1991 Toyota Camry, as far as I know it (which may or may not be mythopoeia at this point). So the kid who bought it used it to deliver Domino's pizzas, which means that the car was adorned with the light-up domino logo for a bit. Then, one fateful night (or day, I'm not sure of the details), while delivering pizzas, the Camry was driven straight into the creek. No injuries, I'm told. The car never drove again, but I wouldn't say that the car was "injured," because it's a FUCKING CAR, and can't be injured, for christ's sake.
While living in Vegas, Pam bought her own car, and so I used that thing occasionally, both in Vegas and after we drove it back to Philly. Those were the years before all our assets were permanently combined. We got married and jointly bought an SUV, then we had kids and jointly bought a minivan. This is how life goes in industrial 21st-century America. You mark checkpoints in life with different vehicles. But before and since that Camry, there was never a car that felt like it was "mine." That makes a difference, emotionally, even those emotions had everything to do with me and where I was in my life, and not the car itself. Fuck the car. It could be still rusting in the goddamn creek for all I care. But still... I enjoyed my time with it.
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