Sit back and relax. Amanda As A Bee has a saga of car stories to tell you.

The car I learned to drive on was a 1982 Mustang. Grey. It was a car we inherited from a deceased great-uncle. My dad swore it was a classic. But it was what you call those eco-vehicles. It had moss growing at the back window. It even cultivated some mushrooms behind the passenger seat. It chugged gas like it was going out of style. And it ended in a mess of twisted metal. Caused by ….

me…

My first car I owned was a Pontiac Sunburst. It was red. I bought it with my boyfriend for $300. It was the kind of car that you met the neighbours with. Meaning, you would have to add water so often to the radiator to keep it from over-heating, you made emergency stops every 10 minutes or so to ask the neighbours for water so that your engine didn’t bust. You could start this car with any car key, your house key, a screw driver or a butter knife. My boyfriend delivered pizzas in the car and one time my lovely friends from Nanaimo came to visit me. They put a jolly mouse in the back of the car that at the slightest jolt, it sang “We Wish you a Merry Christmas” repeatedly in a very squeaky mouse-like voice. The lovely friends put this mouse in the trunk of the car and my boyfriend didn’t know it was there when he went to deliver pizzas on an 8 hour shift. It took him 3 hours to figure out what the squeaky singing was. Then it took him another hour to figure out where it was. Those friends were not invited back very quickly.

We had the car for 7 months, in that time my boyfriend and I broke up and it was lent to me for a month with the understanding I would give it to the Ex after 30 days when I moved back to Victoria. Dutifully, I gave the car back and 5 days later it died on him. C’est La Vie. Poor car. Poor Ex.

My second car was a Nissan Sentra. Red.I bought it off a friend and it was a great little car. The backseat was the most comfortable backseat ever. Like there wasn’t a frame to the back so it was very cushy and sinky.

I adorned this car with ribbons, bumper stickers inside and out and dash ornaments. I loved this car. It had some great bumper stickers in it. Ya know the really clever ones that say “Honk if you’re wearing underwear” and that sort of thing.

The first week I owned the car, I decided to teach a friend of mine to drive standard. We were on the Reserve in Ucluelet, she grinding gears, me explaining loudly that you had to remember the clutch, and we rolled into a dumpster bin. Small scratch. Really miniscule. Then from there we drove to Wikininish Beach. She was doing fairly well until we collided with a telephone pole and crunched up the front of the car.

Hence, the gold hood.

This car had a few quirks to her, aside from the mismatched hood. Her starter was going when I got her so you had to jiggle the wires together, basically hot wiring the car to get her to go. This was a great anti-theft device. No one could drive the car but me because I knew the correct wiggle-jiggle to entice the car to start. One day this didn’t work so well for me and I was stranded in front of the CIBC in Ucluelet. After that, I had to start the car with a regular key like everyone else.

I drove this car mercilessly up and down the island from Ucluelet to Victoria and she did very well until I moved to Nanaimo and my car started to get Nanaimo-itis. Her spark plugs started getting wet all the time and I was changing them once a week. Then every couple days. Then every couple hours. I learned a lot on this car. I changed the tires, when someone pulled a prank on me and put my car up on blocks and hid the tires. I changed the oil and learned how to keep my fluids topped up.

I bought this car from a swindly type of guy. She ran great, she had some rust, she had a stereo which was a huge upgrade for me. And eventually she had an air-horn. She was a great car for getting out of scrapes.

One night I was driving from Tofino to Nanaimo at 2am, as I had to get back for a 9am class. I was driving pretty fast because I wanted to get home and go to bed. I was probably half an hour out from Tofino when I rounded a corner too fast and slid out, right into a ditch.

20 years old, tiny girl, who hates the dark, in the dark, with bears and wolves and cougars around, with my car stuck in a ditch, on a very deserted windy road. I tried not to panic. I was using large rocks to put under my tires to back out of the ditch when a truck came around the corner.

“Amanda is that you?” A guy in the truck asked. He was a regular customer at the Bakery I worked at. He happened to have a winch in the back of his truck. He towed me out and I was on my way again, more carefully this time. I was glad I only had to wait 15 minutes for my helper to come along.

The next car I owned was my favourite.

This is the first car I could live in if I had to. I loved this van. It suited my “image” to a tee.

Unfortunately La-Vaugn the Beastie had some problems. She was a 1974 Westfalia so she was an elderly woman by mechanical standards. She drove like an old woman crossed with a buffalo. You had to coax her into every gear from a very wiggly gear shifter. Then she jerked and jolted along until you got to a hill. Then she would wheeze and puff and cough up the hill.

I once saw a bumper sticker on a Westfalia that said “0 to 60 in 11 minutes.” This summed up the Beastie.

Once the Beastie broke down in an intersection right near MacDonalds. While we were waiting for Marc’s dad to come rescue us, I made hot chocolate in the parking lot. She was a good girl even when she was crochetty.

I was driving from the house to the grocery store one Sunday morning when I heard a huge clunk, and I lost all steering power and all thrust. I rolled down the hill from whence I came and puttered to a dejected stop. A guy came out of the house where I stalled in front. He said,

“Amanda is that you?” He was a regular customer at the Starbucks I worked at. He happened to be changing his spark plugs and tuning up his motorcycle. He said my drive-shaft had fallen off. That’s right. Clean off.

So he took his handy tools and his super skills and screwed my drive-shaft back on and I drove away.

But unfortunately, Beastie betrayed me.

I was moving to Pender. We had the van loaded with all our stuff and I was going to take the first load to our new little house. It was my first day of my new job. Can you feel the jitters?

I drove up to the ferry on Tuesday morning, knowing I would be half an hour late getting to work because of the ferry schedule. The van died as I bought the ticket to board the ferry. I could not get her to start. That’s alright. Sometimes she was temperamental, especially in the mornings.

I coasted down to the ferry line up and waited nervously for the ferry to arrive. Would she start? What would I do if she didn’t? She will start. She has to start.

When it was time to board the ferry, she would not start. I tried jump-starting her down the hill. The ferry workers brought their little tonka truck over and tried jumping her. It was not her battery you see.

I abandoned Beastie at the terminal to get to work. Upon boarding the ferry in the panic, the ferry workers had dumped me onto the wrong ferry and I ended up going to Saturna Island and Mayne Island before getting work at noon.

After the Beastie’s betrayal, we got her tuned up and sold her. It was a sad little day to part with such a distinguished lady.

Now we are driving El Conejo.

El Conejo, which means Rabbit in Spanish, is Marc’s first car. His uncle found it abandoned in a church parking lot. After jumping through ICBC’s hoops, they took possession of the car near Marc’s 17th year. She has had virtually everything replaced. The engine is from a VW GTI, the door handles have been repaired and replaced a couple times. But, she is a great car.

She is a soldier.

And she can be fixed often with a little love, a little ductape and more recently, a pizza sauce can.

Let’s just say, my husband is a genius.

The exhaust system on the car is rusting one weak spot at a time. This is the second time it has failed and sounded like a helicopter taking off. I am very thankful that it is fixed now, and I am very thankful for Marc’s ingenuity.

When he emailed this photo to me while I was at work to reassure me that the car was fixed. My first response was joy.

Then I said, “Are we in the depression? Is this why we do such things?”

My boss said that we should have bought a new car instead of a boat. I told her that if I bought a new car, instead of a boat when the opportunity arose, I wouldn’t be the kind of person that I would like to hang out with. Boats are much more exciting and interesting.

And creative repairs are always an adventure.

To summarize, I have had many a car adventure and I fully realize that they are adding unneeded pollution to our air. But I’ve been very grateful for the freedom they have allowed me, to see the ones I love.

Have any good car stories you care to share?