She was my baby.

My loud, ugly, obnoxious and unruly baby.

Teal was once cool.

My 1994 Volkswagen Jetta. It could from 0 to 60 in less than a day, and always made a habit of turning every ride into an adventure. She was teal and not ashamed of it. She could sit four uncomfortably, but very often carried five on long journeys. I remember Andrew, Ben and Tom all sitting in the backseat enroute to Mrytle Beach. I’m amazed the car could fit them all across the back, but more so that it had the power to make the journey.

There are two very important events in the Jetta’s life. During my senior year in high school, the exhaust basically all-but-detached from the car as I exited the school parking lot. I should have been angry. But I enjoyed the angry noise that was now emitting from my otherwise harmless engine. Imagine, if you will, a kitten with the roar of a lion. That’s what it sounded like. I explained this to my dad, who proceeded to replace the stock exhaust with a straight pipe attached to a glass pack. The car came home even more annoyingly loud than before. I loved it. That car could be heard from over a mile away.

Between freshman and sophomore years of college, I decided I no longer wanted a teal automobile. I pitched this crazy idea to Dad about building our own paint booth out of wood and plastic where we would replace the ugly color with a more manly midnight black/blue. Without fully thinking it through, we went ahead and sanded the entire car down one afternoon. Following that, we covered the entire car with flat black spray paint. Yes, we painted my entire Jetta with spray-cans from Walmart.

We never actually got around to painting the poor girl, and its never had a bath in the past 3.5 years. The engine no longer runs smoothly and mom can’t wait to get rid of it. I’ll miss my old Jetta when she’s gone. I just wish I could’ve had one more day to spend with her, roaring around town with the most obnoxious exhaust known to man.

Sure is ugly these days.

Sure is ugly these days.