Drive 2.

Graduating from college is one of those “holy crap” moments. Gone are the days when your greatest worries were studying for a biology mid-term or writing a paper about some dead English guy. College was behind me. Ahead lay 40+ years of stop work punctuated by all-to-brief weekends of yard work and all-to-often, mindless chatter in windowless conference rooms. My long haul had begun as a dutiful, albeit reluctant, worker-bee in the corporate world. Bring on the mission statements and org charts. And make it snappy.

Enter the Honda Civic. How apropos.

By definition, civic means “of, relating to, or belonging to a city.” Yep, that was me; commuting back and forth to downtown Norfolk, working in an office building, wearing a tie, drinking bad coffee, and being introduced the wonder of spreadsheets and presentations. I had joined the ranks of the countless corporate lemmings. This rather “Orwellian” experience started in 1984 of all things. Mind you, there were highlights along the way: I fell in love, got married, and bought a condo. I endured comments from my grizzlyish college friend who referred to my Honda Civic as “one of those lesbian soccer mom station wagons. Ooh girl, I bet you drive around in that listening to John Tesh.” Uh, no. I did drive it the beach, to the mountains, and literally over the river and through the woods. Well, it was through a river, but that’s a different story.

After about 7 years of driving the Civic, the air conditioning conked out and I was too cheap to have it repaired. As a result, I often drove topless to work on hot mornings where I would then break out the shirt and tie and commence to get dressed right there in the parking lot. The reverse would occur for the drive home.

One day while driving to work the Civic “threw a rod” according to the mechanic. A slow oil leak finally got the best of me and the car. The estimate for repairs was double the car’s worth and then some.

It was time to move on with a new car, a new job and a new stage in my life. Enter car three.