My Own Personal Banana Boat

While riding in the car this past week, my mother said, "Do you remember that yellow car you used to drive? We should never have let you use it. That thing was a boat."

The car in mention was my first car, a 1976 Buick Century Special. I called it my banana boat (not to be confused with banana hammock). It was a beast of a car.



My friend Lena from Germany thought it was so unique looking, she wouldn't go back to her country without getting a picture in front of it.

The exterior was bright yellow with the occasional rust spot. The interior was black and white checkered. My sister refused to be seen in it and even though she would have had a ride to school, she chose to take the bus.

I thought it was awesome.

I guess when my dad opened up the hood of the car for the first time at our house, a rat with a giant parasite infected hole in its side jumped out into the field. The door handle would not latch so, picture this, whenever I made a right hand turn I had to hold the door shut otherwise it would fly open. It took skills to keep the car running.

One day as I was driving through Auburn, the light turned red ahead. I stepped on the breaks and realized that they didn't work. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing to no avail. Lucky for me there was a brand new pickup truck stopped at the light just ahead (not). I rammed into his bumper twice. Being the wise teenager that I was, I started weeping like a baby so the man with the $35,000 pickup would be less likely to yell at me.

My boat didn't have a scratch on it, but I did $1,700 worth of damage to the pansy pickup truck. Take that, Ford.

They just don't make them there vehicles like they used to. It wasn't too much later that we got rid of the boat. I think we might have paid someone to take it off of our hands.