Although we’ve been apart for nearly four years now, she still slips in and out of my dreams from time to time and I know that I’ll never be able to completely forget her. I loved her more than life itself – maybe a little too much in the eyes of some, but I didn’t care – we belonged together! Nearly every free moment I could find was spent with her and frequent were the nights when time would seem to stand still as we bonded as no others could. I was the king of the world as we flew down the highway, my hair blowing in the wind – her enamel sparkling in the sunlight; nothing could stop us.

She was a 1992 Pontiac Firebird – candy-apple red with a 3.1 liter V6 under the hood that could crank out 140 horsepower at 4400 RPMs. It was a common fact that she was known to break 100 mph somewhere between second and third gear, although for legal reasons I can neither confirm nor deny such allegations. I will say, however, that considering I’d pegged out the speedometer on more than one occasion, it’s a damn miracle that I never even got pulled over for speeding…

Looking back on that warm summer night in July, I wish that I could’ve simply been pulled over for speeding or just a broken headlight or something, but I’m not that lucky. I’ve told the story so many times that it seems to come secondhand by now, so here it is now for the three people out there who haven’t heard it yet:

Location: Traverse City, Michigan
Time: Shortly after 8:00pm on a Tuesday night

I had been working over the summer at a local scout camp. It was common place to venture into the city to spend our time off as far away from the actual campers as possible, so that’s exactly what my friends and I were doing. We had just spent the better portion of an hour at Toys ‘R Us and were now heading across town to catch an early movie, but little did we know that ours lives were about to become much more action-packed than Lethal Weapon 4 could ever be…

We were traveling in several cars and planning on meeting up at the theater, although the theater itself was only a couple of miles away so we didn’t really get too separated, anyways. Seeing as the backseat of my car was pretty much non-existent, I only had one single passenger along with me for the ride – a lifeguard by the name of Ryan who I’d known for years. We probably could’ve carried a couple more people – hey, we were used to being cramped by that point, but needless to say, the extra people really cut down your odds while cruising for chicks and we simply couldn’t afford to take those chances! Looking back, I’m kinda glad that we’d put up such a fuss about not carrying anybody else with us because it might’ve been their last car ride for a very long time.

It wasn’t necessarily a very busy night on the road, but we certainly weren’t the only ones on the road, either. It was still fairly light out and the street lamps were just starting to turn on, although one particular individual would claim that it was dark, very dark. Too dark, in fact, to see a shiny red sports car barreling down the highway. You can only guess what happened from here! An older gentleman who had just taken his daughter shopping at the mall pulled out onto the road, oblivious to the fact that I was also driving on that particular section of that particular road at that particular second…

I knew exactly what was going to happen, yet I was completely powerless to do anything about it. I sat paralyzed with terror as I simultaneously heard the squealing of my tires as I tried desperately to slow down and the awaken-the-dead scream of Ryan next to me, followed by the crumpling of metal and fiberglass and then silence. Soon our friends pulled up alongside the accident and checked to make sure everything was ok, then went to make the appropriate phone calls. The driver of the other car approached next and checked everything out, and most importantly apologized and accepted blame for the accident.

This helped to settle my mind a bit about the incident, seeing as I had just lost my dream ride, but within minutes the county sheriff’s department arrived and blew any sense of hope I had managed to find out the window. Although one would have to be legally blind to have missed a car like mine on the road that evening, the deputy on scene was able to convince the other driver that he had not been able to see my vehicle because I did not have my headlights operating at the time. That’s right – the man who had once before uttered the exact phrase, “I’m sorry. It was all my fault…” was now in the clear, primarily because he was both older than me and extremely wealthy. And of course, to wrap things up and pound in the final stake, the deputy was kind enough to issue me a ticket for not having my lights on, as if I hadn’t learned enough of a lesson by simply totaling my pride and joy.

No one was injured, thankfully, with the exception of my insurance record, which I’m still extremely bitter about to this day! I even attempted to plea my case, sighting a full range of witnesses, weather reports and diagrams of the area, but the stubborn asses down at the sheriff’s department wouldn’t budge, and even got quite rude about the whole thing at one point! Thanks to the ignorance of one fellow motorist and the sheer blindness of the law enforcement agencies of that county, I’m forced to pay more for car insurance each month than most people pay for the cars themselves!

So what’s the moral of the story, you ask? Well, duh – how about always drive with your headlights on, for starters? My new car’s lights conveniently dim the display on my radio to the point where I can’t tell that it’s even on, so I tend not to run them all the time, but believe me, the second a single cloud passes in front of the sun or the lighting in my immediate area becomes the least bit questionable, those babies are on in full force, and I’ve got daytime running lights to help cover my ass, too. I do have a couple of other morals I’d like to include here in my conclusion, noting that the bitterness implied is my least violent solution to the situation, so be happy about that…

  1. Open Your Fucking Eyes – Yes, this means you – the mid-40s, divorced father trying desperately to bond with his daughter before she casts him out of her life forever, replacing him with a punk-faced teenager bearing more piercings and tattoos than a Courtney Love fan-club meeting. Believe it or not, she’ll appreciate how you subtly don’t scare the shit out of her and damn near kill her by actually looking both ways before you pull out into traffic.
  2. Don’t Be the Asshole Cop – There are plenty of people in our society who think our nation’s youth are actually minions of Satan and want them all locked up now; be the bigger man (or woman) and perform your job with the respect that it deserves. The law gives you the duty To Serve and Protect – not To Serve and Protect…Anyone Over the Age of 25 Who Bowls with My Boss and Could Get My Ass Written Up. Take a cue from the departments in larger cities around the country already and do the math – for every motorist who you crack the whip at for minor moving violations, there are plenty of murders, thefts and rape attempts that you could be helping to prevent. To Serve and Protect…
  3. The Insurance Company Always Wins… – You’d might as well face the facts: no matter whose fault the accident was or who got the ticket, or even who gave the ticket, the insurance companies will emerge victorious in the end. Yes, it’s true that now I’m faced with the plight of paying outrageous premiums until I’m old and decrepid, so they really won against me, but they also won against each and every one of you – and I’ll bet you didn’t even know that you were playing! The second those companies involved started cutting checks to pay for the costs of that very accident, a few pennies were added onto the renewal rates of everybody’s auto insurance to help keep them in the black. Of course, they’ll never admit to such a scandal, but add up a few thousand accidents every year and then ask the question why your payments never seem to get any lower… All we can do is grin and bear it, make our payments on time, and be the biggest pain in the asses that we can be when we have to deal with them in person!

Man, that was a sweet car, though…