Hey! You shouldn't judge someone by the car they drive!

I've come to the conclusion that we are shallow, as people, for judging others, by the car they drive. I don't think we mean to, it's just the way we roll!

I have been borrowing my son in laws Honda lately because... I am getting sick of getting parking tickets for my ""way over expired plates" on my car when I am at work. I do believe that I have 6 now. The "meter maid" as I will call her, has left me one every night in a different pastel colored envelope on my windshield. I thought I would trick her by putting it back on my windshield so it would look like she already gave me one but No, instead, I just come out of work and there are two on my windshield , the one that I left on there and now a brand new pink or baby blue or light green colored envelope with a new ticket in it! Maybe they have found that using "pastel envelopes" calms people so they are not so enraged when they see the ticket on their windshield. I have now become fearful of pastel colored envelopes and will discontinue using them when sending baby shower invitations out.
That's not the only reason I am driving his car. Tyler and Amber have Kylee's car ( who is in China teaching English right now) because they are making the payments for her while she is gone. It's too much to explain...the story is, I am driving his car and the muffler is ready to fall off! It's not a bad car at all or I am not a bad person driving it but from the reactions I get, I believe I am scaring people. I first noticed when I drove down into an underground parking lot at the Gateway Mall and I could see mothers turning around and grabbing their children. I really am not kidding! Really, I'm not! It has happened several times. I find myself driving past smiling with a little wave as to say to them "see I'm a nice person"to bring comfort to people I don't even know. I have had people yell at me to "slow down" when I am only going 20 mph. Again not joking! I find it disturbing to think that people mistake me for a gang member or one of those people you warn your kids about just because of a little muffler issue! Until I get my car registered, I think I may use it to get some good laughs. I have learned to gas it enough that I can coast quietly past people of importance and other times when I am feeling rebellious, I tend to rev the engine in front of people to get a reaction out of them. I now find it funny to drive up to a convenience store late at night when there are a crowd of smoking teenagers out front, just to see their reaction when it is only me that hops out of the car.

I use to drive a mini van. People are kind to you when you drive a mini van. When I changed lanes people were willing to let me in. I think that people assume that you have a van full of young babies and they are kind to you. People smile at you when driving next to you on the freeway, they let you butt in line. People are more courteous about waving you in, when you are trying to merge or trying to enter a busy street. It must be for the sake of the children or because most of us have been mothers with a whole lotta screaming kids in the car because they are hungry or tired. The general population cares about us mini van driving mothers because they know that someday's we are like a time bomb's ready to explode and they don't want to be driving close to us when it does. I miss my minivan, even if it was an ugly green color with gold wheels. People were nice to me.

On the other hand... I now drive a Mitsubishi Eclipse. If you did a survey you would probably find that most people are in their 20's or 30's driving this car. I didn't buy it to look cool because. I would need more then a car to make that work. I wasn't going through a mid life crisis or had a need for speed either. My son was selling it so I took over the payments. Probably not one of my better choices since... it sits so low to the ground that I basically have to roll out onto the ground and then stand up every time I leave the car. Not really, I exaggerated that part but it does feel like it at times. It only has two doors so no one ever wants to ride with me if they have to sit in the teeny back seat. I can't blame them. Besides, people are not nice to me like they were in the mini van. They seem to hate people in little sports cars and want us to suffer when we are in a tight spot. They don't let me over no matter how much I smile and wave, huge trucks like to scare me riding my butt so close in fear they are going to drive right over the top of me! No one will let me merge or let me pull into heavy traffic and they cut me off trying to get the last parking space every time. It's like a constant race that I never asked to be in.
It's like a war out there and it seems like I get flipped the bird a lot for driving the exact same way I did in the minivan. People give you the "fend for yourself" look when your trying to get anywhere on the roads. I want to jump out and yell " Hey look, it's me the green minivan with the gold wheels lady" hoping they would be nice to me.

I drove my 72 blue Volkswagon bug in high school and felt like I was somewhat cool back then. Pickin up my friends and draggin the Vard on Friday and Saturday night! Shifting down so we would sound cool bb, bb, bb, bb,bb! Now I know we sounded like idiots that couldn't drive. The bug later caught on fire about a month after we sold it to my parents.... I still feel kinda bad about that deal! I love my parents, they never even asked for the money back!

I drove my husbands "way cool" Purple and charcoal gray 1973 Chevy truck while we were dating, listening to Journey really loud on his "way cool" stereo. I looked good back then all sittin up high in his "cool truck". That ended as soon as we got married. He didn't have to impress me anymore and he wasn't willing to drive my BUG which included an 8 track stereo and a AM/FM radio!

I drove a few cars in between, not sure why,they were really ugly, ran bad, still really ugly!

We won't mention those!

Drove my first and my last diesel car. People gave me really dirty looks when I was idling next to them at the bank or stop light. It stunk so bad ( the diesel ) and was very loud. I was asked many times by the driveup teller or fastfood ordertaker if I could turn my car off because they couldn't hear me through the speaker. We got rid of that car soon after my 3 yr old son (Cameron)decided to put it in neutral while parked on my parents sloped driveway. Trying to give my mother a kiss goodbye, I was a mere ten feet away. I suddenly see my car rolling backwards with the door wide open and my child standing in the front seat, holding the steering wheel smiling! My hunk of a teenage brother (Mike) runs and leaps in the car as it runs into the front of his car, that he parked carefully at the end of the driveway. It pulled my door off so bad, towards the wrong direction, that I had to drive it all the way home, on the freeway, with the door barely hanging on, only attatched to my car with rope. We didn't have the money to get it towed. It was pouring down rain and I could see the lines of the freeway in the gap between the drivers seat and the door that was tied on. I was buckled in quite tightly in fear I might fall out onto the freeway! I was getting drenched by the water on the freeway splashing up and the rain pouring down on me while my three year old kept saying from the backseat " why are you crying mommy" ? All I could say was " you broke mommies car and we are supposed to go to Disneyland next week". We made it to Disneyland with a brown car, red door and a black fender! We looked Ghetto but we still made it on our vacation.


I drove the little black car for awhile after my son "Cameron" trashed it as a teenager. Do I see a pattern here? The hood needed painting so bad because it had oxidized in the sun quite quickly after I believe he polished the paint with Armorall!!! I once drove up to the window at KFC and the lady giving me my meal said " Did your car catch on FIRE cause your hood looks all burned up"? I wanted to say thanks but NO, IT NEEDS A PAINT JOB!!! NOW JUST GIVE ME MY DANG CHICKEN!!! But I didn't.


Needless to say, I feel better about driving my PEARL WHITE ECIPSE most of the time. However lately it has been doing a number on my self esteem. Twice now I have been on the freeway and looking in my mirror noticing that a sports car is trying to catch up to me. They try hard to get through traffic to line right up to me side by side. I can see them putting on the gas pretty hard in order to catch up just so they can have a gander at what is driving. I can usually see in my rear view mirror and can tell it's some way cute twenty something guy ready to make a connection. Then the moment arrives when our eyes meet and BAM just like that ... they let off the gas and quickly fall back behind when they see that it is an old fart driving the car and not some beautiful blonde that they were expecting!!! Please people could ya just fake it if ya have to and not be so obvious!

I think that it is time to put the Eclipse up for sale!!!! What kind of car should I get next?