My Cah Is Pahked in Heaven

I miss my car. Whenever I say that, nice people around here go, "Oh? What happened to your cah?" Which makes me even sadder cuz it was born a car and then evolved so much in its short life that it died a cah. It traveled all the way from Michigan to start up fresh on the east coast and one fateful night in June '08, it was smashed in by a renegade pick-up truck with nothing to lose. It was a 2007 Chevy Impala 4-door, white with black leather interior and those cool feaux wood accents on the doors and dash that old people like. I'm old people! It had a power sunroof and a kick ass stereo and at some point XM radio. And 27 minutes of OnStar left. You could fit a toddler in the glove compartment (presumably...) and the back seat had seatbelts for three people. It still smelled a little new. The trunk was big enough for a flat screen TV or four sets of golf clubs or 9 garbage bags full of 80's clothes you could finally part with. It rode smooth. It went fast. It stored important things in the console. Extra change. Scattered pictures. Emergency glass breaking hammer thingy. GPS lady. Leftover french fry. For several years prior I had been an SUV-er. The Impala was my first real car after a series of Rangers, Jeeps, Explorers and Trailblazers. I felt re-introduced to driving like a normal person - low to the ground, close to the road. Maneuverable. Swift. I showed it off when I got it. There were mixed reviews (it's just a Chevy for God's sake!) but I didn't care - I only heard raves. The tiny and faint shoe prints of my nieces on the backs of the front seats were still there after its demise. They loved their test ride in it around the curvy country roads of Traverse City...

What happened: Meg and I were coming home from a show in Clinton. I pulled up to the Weston tolls. There were cars in front of me and I realized I was in the cash lane with a fast pass. The fast pass lane was wide open, so I flipped on my blinker and began moving to the right. I had just pulled into the open lane when BOOM. We were hit from behind and pushed for a ways toward the open toll. Thank God no one was in front of us. Long story short, the entire back end of my dear sweet Impala was crunched, the rear window blown out and the license plate apparently left spinning and retrieved from about 300 feet away. Meg had a bit of whiplash; I was unscathed, outwardly. The other guy, as he is still known today, banged his head on his steering wheel and cracked it open. He looked awful. But it was totally his fault. I expected him to be cuffed on the scene. Instead, the cops noted he refused an ambulance and the tow truck guy helped pull his front bumper out so he could drive off. Meanwhile, Meggie and me waited while all this went down, finally got the car loaded for tow, sat up front with the tow truck driver, were towed to a body shop approximately 45 minutes from our apartment and spent $80 in cab fare getting home. Later, when the Impala was deemed totaled and I visited it in the body shop graveyard to collect my things, I had a hard time saying goodbye. It was surrounded by so many fallen comrades, so much loss. From the front, it looked like nothing happened. But walk around to the back and....sigh. It was over. I think about that car a lot and wonder what it would be like to still have it. Truth is, we really don't have room for it now. I don't miss the payment. And my carbon footprint now matches my girlish figure. So part of me wonders if it knew. The car knew it was a luxury. A bit excessive. Impractical. And for me, it made the ultimate sacrifice, hurled itself in front of a moving Masshole and took itself out of the equation. I think it knew two cars is too much around here. We still have the Corolla. We get around fine. But on really sunny days when we want to hit the open road and visit some little town on the water, I'm not gonna lie, I do miss my cah...