Wheels of Misfortune.

The year is 1986. I was working in North Jersey right out of college. I was making next to nothing and living paycheck to paycheck, as most recent grads do. And I landed a date with a girl who lived in Manhattan with her parents, both of whom were rather successful. Her father was a heart surgeon. In New York. Yeah, let's talk money. I met her through my roommate, who was also from money. Old. Boston. Money. Anyway, I go to pick her up at her parent's place on one of the upper sides of Central Park. East, West, I don't remember, but clearly, the richer of the two sides. The doorman greets me, asks me who I'm there to see. I tell him and he calls up. I get on the elevator with the elevator operator. We arrive at the floor and the doors open...wait for it...here it comes...into the friggin' apartment. Yeah, right into the apartment!! Okay, we're talking money. Full length windows that overlook Central Park. Furniture that smelled like the inside of a bank vault. And vases that looked like if you broke it, you bought it with your life. Her parents walked out of an episode of Dynasty (remember, this is 1986)and into the living room. The girl comes out and says she knows a great place for sushi, if that's okay. Now, I'm an Italian guy from South Philly just out of college. What did I know of raw fish, other than the occasional undercooked Mrs. Paul's Fish Stick? I say "Sure!" At that point, I'm wondering how much credit I have left on my Visa card. We leave her place. I'm trying hard to impress her with my witty banter, until I get to the car. At which point, there is absolutely no witty banter that would save me. I could be the wittiest, Oscar Wilde-spewingist, New Yorker-quotingist son-of-a-bitch in the world, and it wouldn't matter. Because I'm driving my father's hand-me-down Plymouth Volare. Yellow Plymouth Volare. Did I mention it was yellow? And a Plymouth Volare? Without the the rich, Corinthian leather of Ricardo Montelban's Chrysler Cordoba. No, it had the stain-guarded fabric upholstery of a yellow Plymouth Volare. Any hopes of making it with this princess died the moment I walked over to the yellow, fabric-interiored Plymouth Volare. Not that she was shallow, but it was a yellow Plymouth Volare after all. The kind of car a wife would never let a husband purchase. The kind of car driven by old guys who wore their pants up to right under their nipples. It would have had a cheap crack whore laughing, even if I pulled up to her with hundred dollar bills taped to my forehead. It was yellow. It was a Plymouth Volare.

That's pretty much been the deal with cars for me. Not the finest of love affairs.

The first car I drove was a hand-me-down '76 Ford Mustang. Oh, wait, if you're thinking, "Oh, a Mustang, that's cool!" Well, it wasn't. No, not a cool, souped up Mustang. It was a small four-cylinder puke green Mustang II with rust eating a hole through the floor and the smell of something dead seeping from the vents. But I loved that car. And I drove it into the ground. Which is why I eventually wound up with the dreaded Plymouth Volare. Okay, the Volare had some advantages. For example, if you were the suavest bastard in the world and could actually persuade a girl to go out with you despite your car, it had a bench seat in the front. Something that has been gone from automobiles for almost a century now. The bench seat was good, because the girl could cuddle in next to you as you drove. Or lay down for other things...like to hide from the friends that she didn't want seeing her in a Plymouth Volare. A yellow one, no less.

Once I bought a used Ford Escort. This little deathtrap did very well at getting me from point A to point B. Point A being "Hey, at least it's a car", point B being "I don't care...I fucking hate this little piece of shit." It was grey, ugly and grey and ugly. It needed a quart of oil at every stop sign. It did very well on gas, actually. Because most of the time, it was undriveable. And it rattled when you drove over 35 mph. I mean really rattled. Like just leave your vertebrae on the seat rattled. It was like a vibrating bed in a cheesy, cheap motel. And just like a cheap motel room, it smelled like bedbug feces and head grease, and had unrecognizable stains on some of the upholstery. Basically, if the Volare was the moth-balled old uncle who wore sweaters in the summer and would cough up chunky phlegm, then the Ford Escort was the slow cousin who would scare the neighbors kids and eat his own boogers.

When I was married I did the minivan thing. And I'm actually not ashamed to admit it. I actually liked it. I mean, it wasn't like I was going around trying to pick up women or anything. I was married! It was a Nissan Quest, and it drove well, had a VCR in it to allow Barney to entertain the kiddies, and you could fit a lot of stuff in the back. I thought of it as a diner waitress, or a broom or a plowhorse – you could count on it to get the job done, even if it didn't look all that pretty.

So now I'm at the point where I need a new car. The dented PT Cruiser has surpassed the 100K mark and now sounds like a frigate ship that's been attacked on too many occasions by marauding pirates. It creaks. It knocks. It squeels. It wheezes. It's downright more embarrassing than driving a PT Cruiser should be. Often when I'm on a date, I feel much like I did back in '86 with the yellow Plymouth Volare. Embarrassed. So I turn up the tunes a little louder and make a few jokes about the car. Have you ever had to make a joke to cover up something? There ya go. Of course, I did buy it during the ill-fated disaster of a second marriage, so that could have something to do with my disdain for the vehicle. It's got a sizable dent on the driver's side door that happened one night while I slept next to the Antichrist. I never did get it fixed. It's like a battle scar. A constant reminder of the twisted wreck that union turned out to be. So, now it's time to move on.

I actually put an ad up on Craigslist to sell the car. I got a dozen scam e-mails from people who promised to send me a "cashier's cheque" and would have their delivery service pick up the car, and one e-mail from a guy who said he would show me his penis for a test ride. I'm not that desperate to get rid of it.

Another problem is, I hate the whole car buying process. It's like being cornholed by a sleazy door-to-door salesman. Which is actually a pretty good assessment. But my best friend's dad and brother-in-law work in a car dealership and I've been told to go see them to get a deal. Okay, so I'll still get cornholed, but at least I'll know who is doing the cornholing.

Or maybe I'll wait to see if I can get a date with that girl in Manhattan again. When I pull up in the dented PT Cruiser instead of the yellow Plymouth Volare, I'm sure she'd be impressed with how far I've come over the past 22 years.