Rollin in my 5.0 3.8

I was going to do another pseudo-weekend recap, including my missing the cut at the PGA Championship Friday, then shaving my head and filling in for Paul Shaffer while he attended the Pamela Anderson roast. (I turned that mutha out!) But, it didn't seem all that exciting. I had a conversation yesterday about parents buying cars for their 30-year-old "kids", which led me to think about my first car. I already posted briefly about the cars I've had last March, but this will be a little more detailed.

Venture back to 1989, a time of stone-washed jeans and denim jackets. Virtually every girl at my high school had a perm. The favorite request on the late night dedication shows was "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison. And I had just discovered Milli Vanilli and New Kids On The Block.

In February, I turned 16, and my parents decided that I would get Mom's car and she would get something newer. So there it was, a black 1980 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. And it was all mine. Sure, it had a few miles on it. How many, I'm not really sure because the speedometer had already broken. But I knew it had power. A 3.8L V-6 under the hood. (Parental warning: I don't recommend giving your children this much power when they're 16.) Vinyl seats. Wire wheel covers. Stop drooling.

Sure, there were a couple of quirks, as there are bound to be with any old classic car. There was a slight hesitation problem with the accelerator. It did not exactly have the lightning fast response one would hope for. It took a little sputtering and three or four seconds before those 229 cubic inches would kick in. It also featured the always popular AM/FM radio with the cassette player which only had fast forward, no rewind. So I would have to flip the tape over and try to guess at how long to fast forward it if I wanted to listen to a song again. What genius came up with this brilliant cost-cutting brainstorm? How much extra does it cost to put a simple rewind button on there? Anyway, last, but not least, for some reason the car would not stop running for a few seconds (or a minute) when the ignition was turned off. I remember many days pulling up to the Piggly Wiggly (my first job), turning off the car, taking out the keys, and getting nearly to the door before it would completely cut off. Funny thing was, when I would start it back up and back out, it would go dead if I didn't jam it from reverse into drive and give it gas in less than 0.4 seconds.

There were good things about her, though. The cloth interior had come loose from the ceiling and hung fairly low. So, if I rolled the windows down (which I often did since the air didn't work), the wind would give it this super-cool rippling effect. You might be surprised at how much attention this drew around town. Oooooh yeah! Everyone wanted to get a look at Bone and his sweet ride.

Anyhow, I drove the MC for a few months. Oddly, I never had a date in that car. Now that's weird. Working at Piggly Wiggly (where my uniform consisted of a brown smock over a button-down shirt and one of those 80's solid colored nylon ties) and driving that marvel of modern machinery, one would think the ladies would be all over me. (GW Bush voice:)I guess I must have been too fast for 'em. Heh. Couldn't catch me. Heh.

Nope, the first official one-on-one-pick-her-up-take-her-out-and-bring-her-home date did not occur until I landed my next ride. A 1984 baby blue Ford Escort, with sport stripes down the side and black louvers on the back window. Went out with the algebra teacher's daughter. But alas, that's another story for another day.

So, what was your first car?

"Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money. Boys will laugh at girls if they're not funny..."