"A Pivotal Place"

By -
AUX Cords and Itchy Seats
April 22 2012. I heard the word “pancakes” and immediately woke up despite the fact that it was seven in the morning. I probably would have been the epitome of an irritable sixteen-year-old girl if it hadn’t been an absolutely gorgeous day, and of course my dad was taking me out for breakfast. We decided to go breakfast in Oxford which is about twenty minutes away from my house, which is also the town that I worked in, and I swear to God I can probably close my eyes and recall every single detail of the route from my house until the center of Oxford. It is just one long road that all looks the same, except for some occasional chickens wandering the roads, some random cows chewing on some grass on the side of the road, and a couple of areas that were a little more thickly settled. One thing about this route that I despised was the same thing that I was grateful for; For almost three-quarters of the way there was absolutely no cell service or Internet for your phone to connect to. I remember wearing my green sunglasses that I always had stashed underneath my dad’s passenger seat; for the rare occasions that it was actually sunny in Oxford. I also remember the manly scent of black ice hanging from his rearview mirror along with an ornament I made for him when I was four years old. But on this beautiful day two marvelous events occurred: I got chocolate chip pancakes and I got my first car. My friends named my blue 2001 Subaru Forester Ricki, and that is the very first memory I made in that car. .
August 08 2012. Not the scariest day of my life but definitely somewhere at the top of the list, this was the day of my driver’s license test. You can probably guess that I was nervous but the nerves were so overwhelming and to put that into perspective I failed my permit test the first time I took it…and then directly before the drivers test we went out to practice for an hour with the driving school, and the woman re-taught me how to parallel park because my original instructor apparently did not teach me correctly.  Despite my clammy hands and forgetting to breathe, I got my license.
            “My car”: immediately a few things pop into my head, the word “lesbaru” (since that is a common nickname for my car), the yellow tree car scents (Vanillaroma, in case you were wondering), itchy car seats, loud, distorted music, french fries, and bowling.
November 2013. During my senior year of high school, a bowling team was created and everyone loves bowling so without hesitation I joined, along with two of my best friends. Since I had a car and was legal to drive people I was assigned to drive my two best friends, Michael and Brendan, along with some random kid named Aaron. Every Monday we had bowling practice and every Friday we had a bowling match, where roughly fourteen teams competed. The school didn’t consider it a sport, but it was probably more competitive than golf and that was considered a varsity sport. Anyways, every Monday and Friday we would race to the car at the end of the day which without fail followed by a fight for the front seat every single time, Mike would be in charge of the music or else he would essentially become a thirteen-year-old girl, and we would also stop at McDonald’s or Wendy’s every time since it sort of became a tradition and you can’t bowl on an empty stomach. So every Monday and Friday Ricki the Subaru would have an overwhelming smell of boy mixed with an overwhelming smell of old McDonald’s trash. But all four of us became quite close just from those smelly, loud, and energetic car rides to the bowling alley.
June 16 2014. It’s three o’clock in the morning; time to start an estimated thirteen-hour road trip to Duck, North Carolina. Kate’s newly inspected 2003 Toyota Corolla with it’s brand new bumper was ready to be put to the test, there were as many suitcases and snacks in the car as it could hold, thank god there were only three girls in each car. There was a Pink Sands Yankee Candle Car Jar and a really crappy radio, but at least it had an AUX cord. I sat in the passenger seat with the directions of the route Kate’s mother had typed out for us, along with a very large bag of veggie straws and a cup of milk (since I don’t drink coffee). I remember in that exact moment I was thinking about how I felt like such a responsible adult, going on a thirteen-hour drive with 5 of my best friends from my freshman year of high school to a house on the outer banks of North Carolina for an entire week. Kate, Hannah, and I lead the trip in the crowded Corolla, and we never let Hannah drive because she was known for being a bad driver, and then later we found out she was even worse at giving directions from the passenger seat.  I remember at random points throughout the trip we would play Hilary Duff’s entire Metamorphosis album with the sunroof open. I remember feeling like I had taken the place of the mother once my friend Kate started driving again and I was in charge of telling her what the directions were. It was almost as if everyone was my responsibility and I was being trusted to be capable of reading the directions and getting them to where we needed to be, with only a few minor misunderstandings. We stopped four times on the way down, each for coffee, a bathroom break, and occasionally to fill up the gas tank, and maybe once for a nutritious McDonald’s snack. Occasionally we would put Hannah in charge of music since she got sort of cranky about us not letting her drive or give directions, but words cannot explain how crazy her music made me, it was slow and whiney, the worst type of music for a road trip, trust me.
May 2014. My best friend Livv asked if I would take her cousin Joey to our senior prom considering they were really close and she really wanted to show him how different our catholic school was from his public school. It’s common knowledge that when you go to a prom with someone the man’s tie should match his prom date’s dress, but Joey was apparently really nervous about this and on a Thursday night a few weeks before prom he showed up at my house in his car that was without a doubt older than both of us. I cut off a piece of my dress for him, and then we decided that if we should probably get to know each other if we were planning on spending 12 hours straight together at prom. So we hopped into his what seemed to be ancient rusted, gold car and drove to McDonald’s to get McFlurries. The front seat was made for three people, his rear view mirror was held on by duct tape, his headlights barely worked so he always had his high beams on, he only had one speaker and it was on the driver’s side door, but again there was an AUX cord so we listened to the Dirty Heads. We ended up driving around for three hours while constantly opening and closing the windows and getting a little lost on a few occasions. It’s so easy to get to know someone when you’re in a car with them, there’s really nothing to do but talk, and even when you’re not talking you're learning about them through the music that they like to listen to.
August 28 2015. Time to clean Ricki out before heading to college. Every time I clean out my car it’s always mind blowing how much trash can hide underneath the car seats and in the side door compartments. For someone who doesn’t drink any water, there was an obscene amount of water bottles stuck and squashed underneath the driver and passenger seat. I collected all four USB connectors that I had stolen from random places from the house and placed them back where they belonged (besides one to take to my dorm). There was a pile of old car fresheners, mints, and my high school parking permit in the glove compartment. Unsurprisingly, I found probably about six gross empty Dorito bags that my sister had left in-between the center console and passenger seat along with the bible from the theology class I took in my junior year of high school. Lastly, I wiped down all non-fabric surfaces with the fresh scent of a lemon Clorox wipe and vacuumed (I had no idea a car could get that dirty). Unfortunately Ricki did not join me on my trip to UMass, but she is alive and hanging in there, she waits for me in the driveway for the times that I get to come home and cruise the annoyingly pothole-filled roads with my friends. Last semester Michaela and myself left UMass for Halloween weekend and headed to Sutton. We then drove her to Boston to surprise one of my best friends, Livv, at BU. Though I don’t have my car here at school, three of my best friends from high school are here, including Mike from the bowling trips I mentioned.

            For me, a car isn’t just something that gets you from Point A to Point B. Acar is a place where you least expect to make memories but it makes every event much more interesting; car rides are very intimate, they allow for privacy and just quality best friend and father-daughter bonding. Actually, I hated my car when I first got it, for a long time too, I was embarrassed of it and was afraid people would make fun of me for it. I used to hate driving too, but now I constantly offer to drive my car whenever my friends want to go out. My car is a place that I feel comfortable and relaxed. I feel as if I am in control of my life and there’s nothing more fun than being able to sing as loud as you want to whatever music you want. In a car there’s a sense of freedom, you can essentially go anywhere you want that doesn’t involve crossing an ocean.