Ok, so the actual best was marrying Ben. And I guess the second best was having Kennady. But here's what I was really talking about:
When I turned 16 my parents bought me a car (I know, lucky, well they bought a car for me to use, they didn't actually give it to me until I got married, but I was pretty much the only one who drove it). They bought a Dodge Stratus, and it had a CD player, power locks and windows, tinted windows and a remote starter. We also at the time had a 99 Chevy Cavalier, which wasn't as fancy (power nothing and no CD player). I was told I got to pick which car I wanted. I chose the Cavalier. If I remember correctly, my dad was trying to talk me into it, he said the V4 was more suitable for a little girl like me, as compared to the Stratus's V6. Ok, so that wasn't very convincing, but for some reason I chose the Cavalier. Maybe because it is red. For one birthday I got a CD player for the car.
That car is now 11 years old and has 166,000 miles on it. And it runs like a champ. Sure, it's got it quirks- like power nothing except steering, several cracks in the plastic interior, hail damage, a broken trunk, a dented trunk (that's a good story), a cracked hub cap (another good story), a non working air conditioner which refuses to be fixed, a CD player that won't work when it's cold, a gas gauge that doesn't work and the tripometer which requires Fonzie-like moves to correctly display how far we've gone since our last fill up. Oh, and it always has and always will sound and drive a little like a go-kart. This poor car has been severely abused by a teenage girl who neglects to check the oil, ever, and drives on a flat tire for who knows how many days (um, thanks to crappy roads in Rexburg, I honestly couldn't tell the difference).
But Roxanne (that's her name) is the best car ever. She's required very little maintenance. One time I had to replace an O2 sensor. And then something with the steering column. Both pretty inexpensive (well, at least at the time I was single and working and had nothing better to pay for). The one major expense, well what should have been, was replacing the timing belt, which happens to be in the worst possible place in the engine, requiring a bazillion hours in labor. Luckily, my Dad did that for me, so it was super cheap. It still gets awesome gas mileage (around 30 hwy, sometimes more). And tires seem to last longer than they should (or on occasions they blow out....on our honeymoon, yet another good story). Over the summer the car started having trouble. We replaced the battery and that seemed to help. And then it's been getting worse and worse. We replaced the spark plugs (first time ever) and that helped for a little while. And then it continued to get worse. I was starting to get worried that the car might be on it's last leg. But Monday (or was it Tuesday?) Ben replaced the spark plug wires, and she is good as new! $20 for a brand new car (ok, so it doesn't smell like a new car, it smells like McDonald's french fries). Love it. I am hoping she can last another 168,000 miles. See I made a deal with her. The deal was something like this (keep in mind this was when I a junior in college, getting ready to graduate and go on to become a lawyer and make beaucoup bucks, so it probably seemed like a good deal at the time) I said that as long as she was running I wouldn't replace her, no matter how rich and famous I became. Maybe she will get us through Med school and I'll still be driving her as a doctor's wife. Hey, I'll never refuse to drive a car that runs and is paid for.
And, in the meanwhile, the Stratus has died a long, lonely and rather expensive death.
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