Brittany gets a Grown-up Car

Brittany called recently saying she was going to sell her car because she couldn’t get both her dogs and their kennels in the car she had.

When Brittany decides on something, she moves fast. Two days later she had bought a Kia Sportage and was in tears. Why? Because the car she sold was a really cute little red sports car.

Cars mean nothing to me. John is a car nut and since we had the summer off between our wedding and his first army assignment we spent two months driving up into the Canadian Rockies and down the west coast to Los Angeles, across Las Vegas, Colorado, etc until we ended up back at my parents in Chicago.

The whole trip he pointed out cars to me. And told me who made them, what year they were, if they weren’t made anymore what car replaced them, etc. (I say etc. because I really don’t know what else he said. Usually within minutes my eyes glazed over and I went to that place in my head where I could think of more fun things.)

Luckily for him (and me) his little girl inherited his love of cars. When we drove down the highway as a family they’d be talking about this car’s wheel rims or that car’s headlights. Brittany knew all the different cars’ names and makers too.

(I, however, STILL try to get in the wrong car in a large parking lot. Because it’s white! Just like mine!)

So I was happy that he had someone besides me to discuss automobiles with. But when Brittany called me crying; I GOT it! I totally knew what was upsetting her.

Before she was born John bought me a black Firebird Trans Am. It was sleek and had a little bit of tasteful gold trim. And it was hot! People turned and watched as I drove by! Really!

Our other car at the time was John’s two-seater convertible. So when he came to pick Brittany and I up at the hospital after she was born and struggled first to get the baby seat in the Firebird’s very cramped back seat and then struggled to get Brittany into it, we both knew we couldn’t do that everyday for the next 4 years.

So we sold my Trans Am. I got a “family car!” And I cried. Suddenly I was a grown up. With a baby. Past the age to turn heads. You could argue that her dogs aren’t her kids. But she would argue they are. And now my daughter has a family car too!

(We won’t even go in to how that makes me feel!)