March/April 2026

I drive a 2010 Honda Civic with 125+k miles on it and a front left tire that has to be inflated every time I fill up. Today that fillup cost about $56 dollars (because I got 1$ off per gallon using my Freddy Club Points). 

My blue, four door sedan is sunburnt. Flecks of paint fly off every time I drive it (apparently very common with the 8th generation Civics). The windshield has a crack, about four inches from the bottom, across the entire width. The crack started with a pelted rock divot over five years ago. I watched it make its slow pilgrimage from left to right, knowing I wouldn’t do anything about it unless I had to.  

I haven’t had to replace the transmission or belts. The mechanic who checked it out slammed the hood shut and said, “Well, you don’t really need anything done, and you won’t for the next few years, but, I’m here if you run into a surprise. Hey, do you maybe want better speakers?” And, yes, I would like better speakers, but I want them in my next car that I don’t own yet. 

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The only real work I've had done is replacing the air compressor last summer so the A/C would work. It’s only hot here in the PNW for like three weeks a year, but, oh my god I am a tender flower who becomes a red-faced, vomity human in significant heat. I will say again that I am one of the people who wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for leaps in science and medical treatments. Even sunshine in a longer dose than 20 minutes will kill me. 

My car, which I have never named, but sometimes assign she/her pronouns,  rides smoothly and has enough peppy, get-up-and-go to not embarrass me when merging on the expressway, while listening to my latest playlist, which right now is the best cobbled-together soundtrack I could create for the film, Sentimental Value, (which, yeah, woof and you should probably see it). 

When you hit 54 mph, she has a jangly noise under the hood on the right side that starts keeping a beat. I suspect it’s the electrical lead to the air compressor, which broke again almost immediately after being replaced. The mechanic, who had witnessed me paying $2400 for the new air compressor split over four credit cards* just five weeks earlier, said he didn't know why it broke again, but recommended a wiring specialist who charges almost $400 an hour. I have not, nor will I ever, call that specialist, opting instead to use a purple spray bottle filled with ice water that has a battery operated, built-in fan to cool my face and arms, in conjunction with my windows rolled down, hot air flying around and whipping my hair into a classic Bob’s Big Boy, and a nominal amount of bugs in my teeth, for free, for the rest of my car’s life. 

The inside is no frills and I keep it empty, except for the Hot Wheels car that makes its short, lonely ride, back and forth, in the door well behind me, reminding me of my grandson and how much I miss him every day. We’ve got a couple of standard cup holders in front, easy-to-clean grey seat fabric, and a fold-down, bifurcating *bonus* cup holder in the center of the back seat for when we’re feeling fancy.

2010 is the year before bluetooth came installed in most cars, so I have an adapter in the cigarette lighter (which is now called an Accessory Socket, you old timers) with two ports. There is also an auxiliary cable plugged into a port that also plugs into my phone, so I can play music using the car speakers. I want you to imagine those cables wildly coming out of the adapters and plugging into phones, the length of them grabbing around things, including the emergency brake handle and the gear shift, and generally being in the way at all times. And now I want you to imagine your grandfather grabbing three twisty ties, saved from plastic bags around loaves of bread last week, which he shoved into his pocket, and then retrieved when he next took out the car, twisting them carefully around those carefully coiled and tamed cables, which now, continually, bring fresh waves of satisfaction every time he gets in the car. I am your grandfather. 

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My car also came with the first-of-its-kind in-dash navigation system. The little roads are in black and grey scale and it looks like you should be able to play Missile Command on it. It’s too old to get a patch upgrade, so not only can’t I change the display time/date from Sept 03, 2013, which seems really random, but newer roads and subdivisions don’t exist, and the time is one hour off for half the year. My kid, Claren, can’t stand looking at how incredibly wrong it is and asks me to turn it off immediately after getting in the car. I will always oblige. 

However, if you hit the OPEN button, that in-dash screen tilts forward, slides out, and shows you inside its belly where there is a hidden CD slot. (Just like in my belly there’s a hidden spot for unlimited popcorn!) The CD in that slot has stayed constant for the last seven years and is my friend, Nathan Spencer’s band, from Salt Lake City, UT. If you have a chance to see him live, you should definitely do it. He’s a crooner!)

My Civic has been a great companion. A steady, reliable mode of transportation during my nomadic years and even now as a second car for our family. The way it looks on the outside has never been very important to me, which is just another way my preference for what’s on the inside being most important holds true through people, cars, and donuts. 

When I took out the loan from my credit union, I opted for the lowest payment possible, unsure what my income would be month to month. It was a good decision for me back then. I was never late with my $139 payment, even when months were tight, even when I lost all my clients virtually overnight when the pandemic shutdown happened in March 2020. 

I got used to that money going out every month on auto from my checking account, not really paying attention to what the loan balance was doing. I got what looked like a car title in the mail one day. I held it up suspiciously with two fingers and asked Brandelyn if it looked like spam or phishing. She looked it over and said, “Baby, I think you accidentally paid off your car.” Fuck, yeah. 

My car is old and unassuming. It blends into the background of any parking lot. If you were looking for a ride to steal, it’s never going to be chosen. The most luxury I can boast is all four doors open and close well and all four door’s windows go up and down, every time,** on command. What’s not to love? What more could you want? 

Turns out, a lot. One could want something a whole lot more. Someone who lives in our building suddenly reserved an entire bank of parking spots, seven cars deep, where they store their Mercedes, three BMWs (same body style, but different colors, obvs), a Bentley, a Lamborghini, and a Corvette.  

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I’ve never seen the driver, but I keep hoping. I’m so curious what they look like. (Although I have ideasss about their general aesthetic.) They back their cars in so the front ends are all pointed out, like a fleet champing at the bit to be freed. “Let me go run with the wild herd,” they whisper to me, every time I walk past them, balancing my book, water bottle, keys, and glasses case, straight towards my sun-tatted, senior citizen, family sedan with the small, trusty dent on the back left quarter panel that just appeared one day.   

I don’t mean to be negative about beautiful cars. I might someday want a sweet ride, too, but for sure I will never own seven cars. I, too, can be a human of excess, though. I have about 200 paint brushes (some belonged to my grandma and I will never throw them away), so many plants I can’t use my drafting table, an entire closet filled with femme clothing I might never wear again, and also a large box full of other boxes. So, yeah. I get wanting to have or keep things you might not need or ever use.

My imaginary editor just asked if I was about to compare myself to my car, and yes, I am, despite getting awfully close to being a cliche. In many ways, I am like my car. I’m worn out in some joints, have a face full of collected sun spots, and have a few bones that rattle when I move too fast, but ultimately I can get around. The crack in my windshield also goes all the way across, but I’m going to ride this meatsuit all the way to the end and I’m thankful to have it, thankful to still be here.  

And I’m thankful to know you, thankful you are here with me, too.

—

*As a previously nomadic person who depended solely on a high credit score to get what I needed, I am always hyperaware of what amount of available credit I have on any given card and will keep charges under a specific threshold to maintain it, interest rates allowing.  

**There was this day a couple years ago that I took my car in to get checked out because the windows had all stopped working. The guy tried to roll them down and when none of them worked except the driver’s window, he pushed the master control that locks all the other windows and then they worked and I felt so silly. The end.

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