My Haunted Car

My car is haunted.

I know this to be a fact.

So is my uterus.

But that's another story.

This story is about my haunted car.

Except it's gonna be a short story cause I have the attention span of a gnat. (nat? knat? mnat?)

I have a weird history with cars. Well, it's not really weird, I'm just trying to draw you in to the story.

My first car was a 1991 Geo Storm. My mom decided it was time to get herself a new car...she got a Camaro...I think I got the short end of the stick on that deal. It was teal in color and I called her the "Teal Mobile". Yeah, you can now bow down to my creative genius. Accolades more than welcome.

I was a Coca-Cola freak. Not to drink, but to collect...memorabilia, I mean. I loved to collect all things Coke.

I had a Coke vanity plate that went on the front of my baby. I had the requisite crap hanging from my rear view mirror that expressed how truly cool I was. In my case, I put up things that "made me stand out" from the normal pack of too cool for school teenagers. I had a turtle charm on a string that an ex-boyfriend gave me, I had a Mardi Gras necklace that I caught by flashing my boobies did not catch but thought was cool and some other pseudo cool stuff.

I LOVED that car. It was tiny and tight and I could hug corners like nobody's business. Plus...it was teal. Such a gorgeous color. I loved being the one that picked up all my friends and took them places. I loved filling up the gas tank (remember when putting in $5 could get you...well...farther than it could now?) and checking the oil level.

When I was about 18 or so, the engine failed completely and instead of getting a new car, mom had a rebuilt engine put in. This took care of the problem and got me 5 more years out of the car.

I had this car all through my teen years and up until after my child was born. I went back to work at 8 weeks after having her via c-section. About 2 weeks after I had returned to work, I was running errands on my lunch break and pulled into a drugstore parking lot. As I was driving straight in the parking lot to get to the store's parking section, a truck that was parked in a side space backed straight out right after the front of my car passed the back of his. As a result, he hit me on my right rear panel and spun my teeny tiny car 180 degrees. All I can say is, thank goodness light of my life was not in the car at the time or you would have seen a VERY pissed off and ape-shit Mama Dawg.

My beautiful baby was totaled and I had to have therapy to get over my fear of driving. Yes, I had some issues after this accident. Physically, even though I was 10 weeks post-partum, I was fine. But whenever I drove, out of my peripheral, I would see imaginary cars driving straight towards me and I would freak out. I would either slam on the brakes or have an anxiety attack in the car. I had to have therapy to help me get over this. Of course, it didn't help that I was under so much stress being a newly separated single mom with a newborn baby. But, I digress.

As a result of the accident, my Teal Mobile (this is not my car, but a picture of one that looks like mine...except mine was cooler!) was totaled. I got about $2000 for it but was able to get it fixed for about $1000 due to some connections I had...yeah, I'm cool like that.

This would have naturally bought me some more time with my beloved vehicle, but while it was being repaired, mom and I discovered that it was easier for us to car pool to work. We both worked at the same company and she didn't mind going to the daycare before and after work to pick up her beloved granddaughter. She's seriously ga-ga for this kid.

We got so used to this that my Teal Mobile was rarely ever driven. It got to the point that it would no longer run and due to some cracks somewhere, it got all mildew-y and moldy inside.

Hurricane Katrina came along and with that, an opportunity arose for us to get rid of the car for good. A friend of a friend came along and towed it out of the back yard where it had resided all moldy and white trash-y for 5 years.

While I was evacuated, I decided to put on my big girl panties (no, not the ones with the stretch marks...the peach silk ones) and plunk down my hard earned tax return on a new car.

Turns out, I couldn't afford a new one so I got the next best thing...a used one. Yep...a car that's been sat in and used by God knows who.

I remember being in the lot and a really, really young guy approached me to assist me in my purchase. He was so young, he was the Doogie Howser of car salesmen.

Y'all remember Doogie? I loved Doogie.

Eh-hmm...back to my story.

He tried to talk me into a GOLD IMPALA. Seriously, what screams southern white chick who can't sing or dance or is even remotely cool, like a GOLD IMPALA?

Yeah, I managed to talk him out of that one.

Instead, I got a 2005 Pontiac Grand Am V-6 dark grey in color. Not too shabby. It gets great highway gas mileage but crappy city mileage. All in all, not a bad car.

I purchased this in April of 2006. In August of 2006, some IDIOT woman ran a red light and hit my car on the front left side. Yeah, that was fun. I had a strained shoulder and was again scared poopless but this time I managed to get through the trauma without the help of a therapist.

My car was in the shop for a long time. It was almost totaled. Which would have sucked because at that point, I had only made 5 payments on it.

It was fixed and things were well. One day, I was cleaning out the car and was shoving my hands in the crack where the back of the seat meets the seat bottom in the back of the car. Lo and behold, guess what I discovered?

This and this (except mine had weights in grams on it).

Yeah, my baby's tushie had been sitting mere inches away from an instrument of death and a shit colostomy bag.

When I took them in to work to show them to some of my co-workers, one of them mentioned that it was drug paraphernalia.

First of all, WTF? What is this kind of crap and what is it doing in MY car? After doing a little research, I found out that my "new" car was a car that was used by a "businessman" that traveled a lot between Mississippi and Florida. Hmmm.....I wonder what "business" he was in? To this day, I'm scared to get into another accident. Who knows that kind of "substances" I'll find next time.

Of course, with today's economy, I'd be better off selling it and making sh*tloads of money...but that would be illegal and I'm not about that. Weeeellllll....nope, I'm not about that.

Second of all, who knows crap like that? Needless to say, that told me a LOT about that particular co-worker (which explained SO MUCH) and her extra-curricular activities.

I guess you're probably asking yourself at this point, "Self, when is Mama Dawg going to get to the part that has to do with the actual title of her post".

Well, I'll tell you.

Ever since the accident, if I'm driving by myself in the car, I will sometimes feel this "phantom" kick in my lower back. You know, the kind that comes from little kids repeatedly kicking the back of your seat?

Yeah, I feel that. I keep thinking it's all in my head but it happens too often and with so much force that I can't go on thinking it's all in my head.

So, I've come to the conclusion that my car is haunted. And I think it's haunted by the ghost of my beloved Teal Mobile because, what other explanation is there? I think it's getting me back for the years of neglect and forgetfulness and selfish behavior.

Seriously, I'm asking, what other explanation is there? Randy squirrel stuck in the seat? More drug paraphernalia that's moving around? Ticking time bomb a la "Squirrel and Moose"? (for those of you that didn't get that, I'm referencing Rocky and Bullwinkle).

Sigh...such is my life.

Later,

Mama Dawg