介绍:
I’m proud of (and embarrassed by) my old car
By Leah Birnbaum
I drive an old car. It turns heads. It’s not an antique or a special model but its boxy station-wagon shape and two-tone blue-grey paint make it stand out as a senior citizen on the roads.
People are genuinely nice to me when I drive this car. They wave me in to merge. They let me cut in rather than inching forward to freeze me out. They smile and wave back when I yield for them. Perhaps the car reminds them of a simpler automotive time.
The car is not perfect, of course. It’s very old for a car: 1991. My kid’s classroom teacher was born the same year it was made. The seatbelts are starting to fray and they don’t retract all the way when you unbuckle them. The seals around the doors are imperfect so there’s always a little whistle of air coming in. In the winter, the hatchback doesn’t stay up. You have to hold it up while filling the trunk with groceries or it will drop down on your head. In the summer it works fine; it just doesn’t like the cold. But the engine on our old Corolla likes the cold just fine. It starts every time.
Sometimes the doors stop working. Once, during a cold snap, the only door that would open was the hatchback so I crawled in through the trunk, over the back seats and into the driver’s seat. I’m proud of the car and embarrassed by the car at the same time. I’m proud that it works. I’m proud that I don’t need a fancier model. I’m embarrassed when I have to shake hands with my client and then walk past my car and wait until he leaves before I can circle back and crawl in through the trunk.
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