Punch Buggy Red No Punch Backs

I have no idea why I'm thinking about this right now. Maybe because it's overcast and gloomy outside. Maybe because I'm reaching that point I always do: about 2.5 weeks into a CPM tour, I start to get jealous, angry, lonely and depressed (Lucky for him, he comes home this weekend, before I can start my usual barrage of insulting email messages, in which I try to make him feel as bad as I do). I'm possibly trying to distract myself from those feelings with semi-happy thoughts. Honestly, I have no idea. I just know that I keep thinking about how when I was a pre-teen, I dreamt of having this as my first car:



My first actual car was a 1987 Mazda 323 hatchback with a manual 4 speed transmission, no air conditioning, and no working stereo. It was given to me by a relative during my first semester in college, right around the time that CPM and I began dating. CPM put a tape deck stereo in it for me. The stereo was one of those sexy pull out monsters that was approximately the size of a refrigerator. The stereo worked 70% of the time. If you hit a bump driving, the stereo would probably stop working for a while, until you hit another bump, and then it would resume working.

I loved that car. She was covered in stickers. She took CPM and I to lots of shows in distant places. I freely admit that I abused her. Neophyte car owner that I was, I didn't understand about old cars and the need to check their oil regularly. At least once, I was driving her without any oil. Whoops. It came as no real surprise that a few weeks after the night when the oil light went on, she died on the side of Route 55 in New Jersey, on the way to visit my gram at her shore trailer. The engine basically exploded. CPM and I had to be towed back to my parents house in the Philly suburbs. I got to ride in the cab of a gross tow truck with a sketchy tow truck driver for 88 miles (a tow that was covered completely by my AAA Plus membership). Exciting.