To say that my car is vintage would be nice, and you might think I have some groovy old stylish character car. In reality, the car I putt around in is a 1994 Firefly. It is as basic as they come. Two door, hatchback, 3 cylinders. No power anything! It has Armstrong Steering*, crank handle windows and all 3 cylinders sing a song of urgency when I’m whipping down the highway. It does have one creature comfort though; two winters ago my friend Glenn installed a car starter in it, which is just lovely on very cold days!
It is a good little car though, and I can tuck it into pretty much any parking space when I venture out into the big-wide-world. When I got it a couple years ago, it had just under 77,000km on it. It was literally driven by a little old lady on Sundays… my Grandma! She had always said when she was done driving; she would give me her car. As she is a sprightly elderly woman, I didn’t have any idea when that would be. But a couple years ago, she called up and said she was done driving and her car was mine if I wanted it. So off we went to the DMV, signed some papers and I came home with The SuperFly!
But now, it is 2011 and the car is getting a bit aged and things are starting to go. Most notably: the window seals which give me frost on the INSIDE of the windows on cold days (let me tell you, THAT is a bitch to scrape), and the door locks. When I went to go out last night I put my lock in the driver’s side door and tried to turn… nothing. Went to the passenger side, same story. Back to the driver’s side with some prayer and a few choice cuss words on my lips and by some stroke of luck the lock popped.
A few hours later when I went to get in my car to go home, same story. Now, it has been pretty cold lately, and standing outside at night in a parking lot monkeying with my key in the door lock is not high on my list of things to do, especially in winter! As I stood there praying (ahem, cussing) that the door lock would decide to unlock itself I looked back at the hatch. That lock always works. The car gods were smiling on me though, and I got in through the door. However I am not looking forward to the day that the door locks give up on my completely and I am left to get into my car by crawling in through the hatch. I just hope I’m not wearing a skirt at the time…
*Armstrong Steering = me making my noodle arms use great effort to turn the steering wheel, especially when it is cold outside!
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OMG, you need to post a picture of this infamous car. And you should also be sure to get a picture the day you do have to crawl in thru the hatch because you KNOW it's inevitable. :)
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