Your first car: a rite of passage. You turn sixteen and get
behind the wheel with your license for the first time and so many doors are
flung wide open. The options seem endless when you’ve got a full tank of gas, a
high school student’s ambition and four wheels beneath you.
My car’s name was Chuck, before my family sold him and
traded up. His full name: Chuck the Astounding Adventure-mobile. Yes, I know,
men are supposed to name their cars and boats – all manner of vehicle, really –
female names in the tradition of our seafaring ancestors. But I was not a man
when I named that car. I was still a boy, and regardless, that goofy, cherry
red Mercury Sable was definitely a male in character: sturdy and loyal, but not
above playing the occasional prank. I went without air conditioning one
sweltering Texas summer while we saved money for that fix, and I discovered the
hard way that the 1999 model doesn’t come with anti-lock brakes.
