As graduation draws closer—terrifyingly close—and my departure from Wisconsin becomes more imminent, my yearlong effort to grow up and become a full-fledged, responsible adult becomes less about choice and more about necessity. Over the weekend, I decided the time had come to make a big step into adulthood: the purchase of a new car.
After graduation I'm planning on moving across the country to Phoenix to begin a career as an elementary school teacher (and president of the ""John McCain is the Sexiest U.S. Senator"" club). Having a functioning car is a requirement and my previous set of wheels was lacking, to say the least. In fact, my old car has been a source of constant embarrassment and frustration since my dad handed me the keys nearly five years ago.
Turning 16 and getting your driver's license is an important rite of passage that every American teen looks forward to. Unless you're me and you know that your first car is such a piece that you chose not to get your license at all to avoid the humiliation.
First of all, I know I'm shallow and I accept it. I should have been thrilled to get any car once obtaining my license, but when my dad informed me that I would be driving my grandmother's old Ford Taurus, I almost died.
Part tank and older than dirt, the Taurus was given to my sister and I after my grandmother died (probably of embarrassment from driving around in a turd-colored car). How the car was still running after all the curbs she barreled over and potholes she fearlessly took at 60 miles per hour is a miracle... or a cruel joke.
And so when I turned 16, instead of being first in line at the DMV, I insisted on being driven around by my friends and father. Unfortunately, it turns out I'm just as annoying as I am shallow; so around six months after my birthday, they had all had about enough and I was given an ultimatum: Get a license or get walkin'. And I hate to walk. I had to bite the bullet... It was Taurus time.
At one time, so says my father, the Taurus was a luxury sedan. Traces of that claim remained: the velour seats, the expansive backseat... Okay, that's all, but I do believe at one time it was a decent car. But that time ended in 1995.
The Taurus was seemingly invented before the age of automatic locks or windows. It isn't equipped with mirrors on its fold-down visors nor—by the time I was named the proud owner—functioning interior lights. On the plus side, the Taurus was built in the era when all cars came equipped with cigarette lighters; and so if I was ever trapped in the dark, I did have a light source, albeit a small and relatively dangerous one.
After the first thousand or so trees/light posts/stop signs I backed into, I realized there is absolutely no way to avoid damaging a car that's approximately 25 feet in length. As a result, the Taurus has a somewhat tie-dyed exterior, a mix of other cars' paint and yellow streaks from gas station poles. And the bumper is literally held together with packing tape—I decided it was classier than duct tape.
Also, the Taurus can't go any faster than 85 miles per hour and accelerates at the speed of a legless turtle, so highway driving was beyond terrifying. Maybe most fun of all was the broken wiper/turn signal. If the wipers were running and I put on my right turn signal, they would freeze in place and stay frozen until the signal turned off. This always left me with the fun decision during rainstorms as to whether I wanted to use my turn signal or maintain any kind of visibility. My friends found these malfunctions to be absolutely comical, a sentiment I've never understood.
Hopefully, $19,000 later, these issues are all in my past, but the memory of the Taurus is not something that can be easily erased from my memory. It's hard to shake off the shame that accompanies driving a car that your friends nicknamed ""The Beast.""
Have a beastly car of your own? Want to share your hilarious horror stories with Jillian? E-mail her at jlevy2@wisc.edu... and keep your beater away from her pretty new ride.
