I just sat down to the computer after finishing what seemed like a million chores and errands. I have a lot of work to do, a real lot— hours of manuscript review. So, while I procrastinate, because I really, I mean really can’t face sitting here for hours with this pile on my desk, my car came to mind.

This is just about the first anniversary of my car, which was a well researched and happily received milestone birthday present. Even if I know what I want, I belabor the issue and beat it until it is horse paté. It was time for a new car, to pass my ’99 Camry on to my son, and celebrate another decade of life with a new one.

I wanted a hybrid.

I got one. Another Toyota Camry. With bells, whistles, GPS, Bluetooth, great mileage, wild readouts and an engine that sounds like a “starship” according to my son.

I remember our first family car: a black Studebaker Lark. My father brought home the brochure and we ooh-ed and -ahhhh-ed. It was 1959 and we were getting our first car. It had a red vinyl interior, and my father was heavy on the horn as he went around the curves on the East river Drive from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

A few years later, I was making out in the front seat with Larry Liebowitz (stick shift between us) in his used VW beetle; my mother walked by, was appalled by my behavior; she glared: “get out of that car immediately!”

Then there was my boyfriend, and future husband, Steve and his car obsessions. He liked car racing, and used to go to the track regularly and bring home trophies.
(What was I thinking??)

He began with a 1961 Buick LeSabre convertible. (It once did a 180° spin-out on that same East River Drive, in the rain). I loved it because it was classy and elegant.

He sold that (was I ever furious) while we were married, and bought a ’55 Chevy for racing. (Again, what was I thinking?)

Then there was the Honda mortorcycle.

Eventually we moved up to real class: a new 1969 Grand Prix in bronze. Over $5,000. I had just graduated from college and for a brief time was in the cosmetics business and making quick bucks; it was a business based on a pyramiding scheme, I later found out. But it got us the car and made us looks “successful.” (All this is another story.)

Those were the days of the V-8 (no wonder they named a juice after that engine). Future V-6’s felt like a step down.

When Steve died in 1975, I sold the car and was glad to be rid of the burden of maintaining it. The burden of Steve is still another story, and fodder for many of my poems.

During my second marriage we had purchased Uncle Milton’s Dodge Aspen.
It was doing fine but was lifted out of it’s parking spot from in front of our building during an ice storm, either by a tow truck or alien space craft. It was probably sent by ship on a permanent vacation to somewhere in South America.

This time we bought a used leased car, a 1980 Buick Century. It died at about 55,000 miles.

Seeing that we didn’t have much luck with American cars and we decided to give Toyota a try and have been hooked on the Camry.

The ’89 Camry was our first new car. We needed a second car and got the ’91 Camry.

As the years passed, we replaced the ’89 with a ’99…

and the ’91 with the ’02…

Getting back to my ’09 hybrid, it was a purchase made after much thought and research. I had wanted a hybrid for a long time; it costs more and though you save on gas, you really don’t come out all that much ahead, but I wanted it as my “statement” car; if I could help the earth by diminishing my carbon footprint, why not?

Now we get to the realities of car ownership. Love at first sight! You get the car. And then this happens: you worry about the dings, then you get a ding. Remember the girl who bonked me in the back and chipped the paint on my bumper? (I still maintain she was texting–we were waiting for the light).

You start hearing noises: what’s that rattle coming from the right side? You get dinged again–actually worse, by a spouse who misjudged the angle and drove your car into your son’s car while turning into the driveway. The newness and perfection wane. You pretend not to see this and that. And, was that a jiggle, rattle, rolling, clunking, thunking? If something thunks does it mean it can think? You start thinking the worse. What if it’s the manifoldwatchamathingy? How much will it cost to fix? I only have it a year!!

Today I brought my car in for its first general maintenance and inspection. “By the way,” I said, after you do the oil and the filter, could you check on that noise on the right side? If someone is sitting in the passenger side I don’t hear it, but if not, there is a rattle.” Maybe the seat belt is clunking on something. Maybe it was the “Easy Pass” jiggling in its holder. Perhaps it was something in the glove compartment. But, no matter how much I rationalize, I hear something. And if you ever read Ludwig Bememlman’s “Madeleine” books, you know what I mean when I say, “Miss Clavel turned on the light and said, ‘Sometheeeeng eeees not right.”

I went to pick up my car. There is was the car’s first bill. First inpsection. “And by the way,” I was told, “here’s something I printed out from Toyota about a known issue of a rattle. The 2009 is included in the years. Bring it to Toyota.”

Now it starts.

I called Toyota. They didn’t know what I was talking about. “Come in, I can’t diagnose on the phone.” So now I have an appointment to sit at the dealer for hours on Friday.

The last time I was there, my engine light went on and that was alarming enough. But it was nothing more than the gas cap not being on tightly enough. Another time a light went on to indicate something with a tire. My husband told me to ignore it. The next day I had a flat.

As things get more and more technological, the problems get more complex. Or sometimes there isn’t even a problem, it’s just that the newfangled stuff is so hypersensitive, it can tell you three weeks before your tire loses pressure.

I am tempted to have my car fixed and buffed back to its first day off the lot condition. There is nothing like the feel of that untouched, un-dinged car perfection. It’s a high like the beginning of a relationship, the feeling after the wedding. You look at each other and it’s love and love. Nothing can mar the moment. And then you notice your wife rattles when she sleeps and your husband thunks when he eats.

The honeymoon is over.

But my Camry Hybrid still smells new. That’s what keeps the fantasy going. Get in the car and smell eau de new.

(Why can’t cars smell new forever?)

I’ll keep you posted on the shake, rattle and roll.

PS- from the New York Times: hybrids are so silent that you don’t know your car is running at times, unless the motor kicks in. Here’s an article on an artificial noise that hybrids will be required to make so us hybrid owners don’t cause a threat to mankind!.
Hybrid Cars May Include fake Vroom.
This is too much–I might be able to get my very own car ring tone.
I’m going to have my car sound emulate a woman in a Brooklyn accent:
“Comin’ through, move it, already!!”