Well, Monica, I guess you’ll never get to ride in the jump seat after all.
This is the thought that came to me as I stood on the side of the road last Thursday, leaning against the hood of my exhausted car. The one thing my friend Monica had wanted to do since I bought my parents’ 1992 Volvo station wagon three months ago was to ride in the famed jump seat. And now Old Bess had broken down — 15 minutes from my house.
Her hood was warm and gently shaking with the effort of the still-idling engine. A steady stream of white smoke was slipping out into the cool night air from under the hood, as if Bessie were still wheezing with the effort of the hill we had just attempted to climb.
She hadn’t made it. Halfway up, her familiar, lumbering, I-think-I-can gait had given way to a violent pounding accompanied by a powerful trembling that shook her entire boxy, aqua-green frame.
She had taken me to my first day of kindergarten, my first day of high school, my first day of work and my first trip to Disney World. But as I stood on the side of the road beside weary Bess, all I could think was that I had bought this car, that I had invested time and money into this car, and yet here I was, stranded in the middle of nowhere like a dumped hitchhiker. I wonder what Old Bess was thinking.
“Well,” she must have thought, blinking disappointment out of her eyes, “I guess Monica will never get to ride in the jump seat after all. That’s the most excited anyone has been about that since you outgrew it years ago. You used to sit back there with your friends and make faces at the cars behind us. Those were the days — when to-go cups of Coke from Frank’s Pizza, matching scrunchies and riding backward made a Friday night.”
“Well,” she must have thought, “I certainly don’t have the stamina I once had. I used to be able to make it all the way to Ocean City every summer. Back then you would listen to the Spice Girls on your Walkman the whole way down. It was either the Walkman or the Giga Pet.”
“Well,” she must have thought, “I hope you don’t think I’ve let you down, like when you failed your driving test because I was too clumsy to parallel park. But in my defense, we wouldn’t have run out of time if you had remembered which way to cut the steering wheel.”
“I’m sorry,” she must have thought, heaving a heavy sigh, “I’m just too old. My air conditioner hasn’t worked since you used to go to baseball practice in your Umbro shorts and adidas sneakers. My radio hasn’t worked since you had to drive to high school. I’m sorry I couldn’t get you home from College Park tonight, but at least we’re on a familiar neighborhood road close to home and not stuck on the interstate. It was a good run, but I’m just not the same.”
It’s OK, Old Bess. We’ve had some good times. So what if you haven’t been cool since 1995? Neither have I.
Rachel Hare is a senior French language and literature and journalism major. She can be reached at hare at umdbk dot com.
