Three and Four

Sadly, there are no photos of cars three and four, so you'll have to use your imagination. Shed no tears. These were not photogenic vehicles. When the Fiesta tanked due to something called piston scoring, we were looking to buy a house and didn't want to cloud up our financials with a car loan. So we paid my in-laws too much money for their spare car, a '78 or '79 Ford Ltd. It was approximately three times the size of the Fiesta so driving it was quite an adjustment. It was handy for hauling a bunch of drunken people home from downtown. The most notable occasion being my thirtieth birthday when I believe there were nine people in the car. Singing rather loudly. No one was injured and, yes, I was sober. There's some irony, acting as DD on your own milestone birthday. It was silver, or more correctly, silver was the original color. There was nearly as much red primer visible which gave it a festive, two-toned appearance. It sported a burgundy vinyl roof which was tattered to the point that it looked like it was always having a bad hair day. It served us reliably for close to five years. When it became less than reliable, I called my friend, maid-of-honor, and car sales professional, Brenda, and asked her if there was any possibility of trading it off. The answer was yes. We abandoned the Ltd for a cute little Ford Escort station wagon in black that was a couple of years newer. It was back to a stick shift which I enjoyed. It was the shortest relationship I had as far as cars were concerned, I drove it for just a couple of years. Then we sold it to a family member after we had fixed everything that could possibly go wrong on a car in such a short span of time. She enjoyed it with our blessings. And she paid more for it than we asked. Which is one of those odd things you don't question on your way to the bank with the check. Particularly because we had purchased a mini van the day before to accommodate our two child family. And written a check for more than was in our account. There are many photos of the van. And I know you just can't wait to see them.