The Bumper-less Big Red Beast

**Update on the Jeep-the guy who was supposedly (according to my in-laws) going to buy it, never showed, so she's still mine!!!! Until Adam sells it on craigslist, cause we kind of can't afford to keep an extra car sitting around for sentimental reasons. So, I'll be taking pictures for craigslist this week and then I can show off my baby on here too!

I'm getting very annoyed here, I was going to show you pictures of my bumperless big red beast of a Jeep, but I can't find what Adam did with them! When you have somewhere in the area of 25,000 pictures in your computer and your husband isn't very organized it's not a fun thing, so instead of showing you, I'm just going to have to be very descriptive.

So, my Jeep, my first car, my baby, my Bumber-less Big Red Beast of a car. It has 185,000 miles on it, over 100k of which I put on myself. The air conditioning hasn't worked in years, and it smells like coffee, permanently. The speakers are amazing, it has one major sound system for it being something my dad and I threw together my senior year of highschool. It took me on weekend roadtrips with girlfriends to visit other girlfriends at their colleges. It took me to each and every one of the many many piano lessons I taught for 4 years. It took the kids that I nannied for and me all over the place making so many memories. It was the first car I took the oldest girl driving in. It took me back and forth to Buffalo every other weekend for almost a year to see my grandma when she was still independent. It took Adam and I back and forth to the hospital in Buffalo every other night for 2 weeks when we knew she was at her end. It took me back and forth to Adam's parents across town for the year and a half we were together before we were married. It took us on our honeymoon. That car is full of memories, and now it's getting ready to not be mine anymore.

Last October I was on my way home from a lesson and talking to Adam (on my headset!) to exchange how our days had gone and such on my way home cause I needed to be somewhere later and didn't want to miss our talk time. I was sitting stopped on the side of a hill waiting for the school bus at the bottom to move again when I looked up and in my rearview mirror saw someone coming way to fast up over the hill. I knew as soon as I saw it that there was no way she was stopping. I started screaming at Adam that I was about to get rear-ended, and then she hit me. I honestly never felt it, I just remember swerving out into the other lane, because the car in front of me was much much bigger and I didn't want to get sandwiched, knowing there were no cars because of the school bus, and not being able to stop. Stupid ABS made my car think it was already stopped and wouldn't let me stop again. So here I am, flying down the hill, with no brakes, narrating all of this in a very panicked screaming voice to my husband. I had to stop the car with the parking brake on a very funny angle in a ditch on the side of the road. I honestly think the only reason it stopped without rolling was God, because there's no way I'm that good of a driver. The whole thing was God really. When you're getting hit who thinks about what they're doing? But seriously, my poor husband, he heard all of what was going on on the phone, not there to know everything, but hearing enough to know I was in trouble. The poor guy. He started to leave the house when he first heard me flipping out, but had to go back in because he realized he was only in sweats and a zip up, no shirt under or shoes. I scared him just a little. He was really clingy for a few days after that, it was kind of fun :)

Anyways, that was the start of my Jeep's demise. I got money from the other lady's insurance, but only had the mechanic do what was needed to make it safe and legal, and that didn't involve putting a bumber back on. Oh well, I can't see the back when I'm driving it, so if the back end looks like garbage that's the person behind me's problem.

Well, my parents came into town for Easter and my dad saw my car and was kind of mortified that I was going around being seen in public in a car that looked like that. My mom refused to go anywhere in it with me and insisted on taking their van everywhere. Seriously, it wasn't that bad! When you can't see the damage you don't think about it! Anyways, they went back to Kentucky, where they were temporarily living, and a couple of weeks later my dad called to see if I wanted his Jeep. He said seeing how horrible my car looked gave him incentive to buy a newer Jeep for himself and give me his old one, because even if it had over 100,000 miles on it, at least it wasn't embarrassing to look at.

So, we drove down in a one way rental that weekend and brought it back and now I have my *new* (to me at least) Navy Blue Jeep. It's loaded, which is fun, but it still doesn't feel like mine. Maybe since my baby Jeep is sitting in my in-laws turn around, but not for much longer. Someone is coming to look at it tonight and hopefully pay us decent money for it. The engine is still in perfect condition and makes the most beautiful noises you've ever heard. I love that car. I went over to clean everything out of it last night and started it up and wanted to cry. I'm going to miss that car. So many memories, so much fun, so many tears, so much music and singing at the top of my lungs, so many friends, so much of my life was spent in that car. I'm going to miss my Bumper-less Big Red Beast.