Thursday, July 23, 2009

Blackjack


















Have you ever done something that you later regretted? Something big like give your car to your teenage daughter? Your favorite car? Yeah, I did that. When our daughter got her license last fall, we handed her the keys to our 1992 Volkswagen Cabriolet, dubbed “Blackjack” by the family when hubby drove it back from Chicago in 2002.

As the kids are in California with their dad, I’ve been driving this car during the summer so Clark can drive the air conditioned Malibu as opposed to the van with no working a/c. I had forgotten how great this car is to drive.Yes, It's 17 years old….and the a/c no longer works… and the instrument panel doesn’t work if the weather is too warm… and, if the transmission is warmed up, it CLUNKS into reverse… and, as I learned during yesterday’s torrential rain, the roof leaks. Still, I…love…this car! With the top up, the interior is cozy and intimate. With the top down, you’re immersed in the driving experience… sound, feel, smell.

This isn’t the first Cabriolet our family has owned. When the kids and I were in California, their father and I traded in our van for a 1986 VW Cabriolet and cash to buy an old Chevy Suburban. They were named “Putt-Putt” and “Bump-Bump” (hey, my kids were three and six at the time!). “Putt-Putt” was bright red with black leather, over which I put black and white fuzzy cow print seat covers. I loved that vehicle, but when we moved to Florida, we sold it.

Anyway, back to “Blackjack”… When we were looking for a high mpg car for hubby, who was driving to Memphis 1-2 times a week, Knoxville a couple of times a month and other places all over Tennessee, he mentioned the VW Jetta he had in his first marriage. I countered with the Cabriolet and, being the great guy he is, Clark was intrigued by the idea of a convertible. This was back before Craigslist, so I looked on eBay. That didn’t work. The local newspaper’s classifieds went to Cars.com, which was a bust. Remember the good old days when you would go to the auto parts store and pick up an Auto Trader? I did and discovered Auto Trader was online. We found a car advertised by a used car lot in Chicago that had everything we wanted… a/c, manual transmission, glass rear window… and it was a manly black on black color scheme. Clark flew up to Chicago and drove that baby home. The only downside? The car lot obviously didn’t know the difference between an automatic transmission and a manual. Oh, well!

This little car was Clark’s main vehicle for a while, while I drove the *shudder* minivan (another long story, one with which I won’t bore y’all today!). Then after the layoff, I started using this car to drive the boys, our son and his best friend, to school. They loved it! So did I. I can’t emphasize enough how much fun this car is to drive. There is nothing like tooling down the road, crisp fall air rustling through your hair, a canopy of trees full of autumn color overhead!

My daughter has been driving her dad’s van and Toyota Tacoma pickup while in California; yesterday she told me she can’t wait to get home to HER car. Excuse me? I’d been so happy driving “Blackjack” that I almost forgot I’d have to relinquish it when they got back home. Guess I’d better enjoy it over the next two weeks! Giving up my favorite car is a very small price to pay to have my kids back home!

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N

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