A Ride's a Ride

Well, I'm back in my hometown of Farmington, UT for the holidays.  It was a beast to get up here Friday evening with the packing, the cleaning of the apartment for cleaning checks, and getting ready to move into a new apartment (it'll be in the same complex, but on the fifth floor instead of the 3rd--I'll probably write more on that in a future post).  The biggest problem was traffic.  It took a full two hours instead of the normal one to get from Farmington to Provo.  It was kind of a boring ride, being all alone in my car.

By the way, I haven't written about my car yet.  Over the Thanksgiving break, my dad purchased a much needed new car, since the minivan is slowly dying.  He got a brand new Nissan Pathfinder, which is significant for family reasons.  My Grandpa on my mom's side lives in Tokyo and worked for Nissan for his entire life.  Buying a brand new Nissan vehicle brings honor to the family on a level somewhere inbetween sending a kid to college and being elected mayor.  Buying a Honda brings shame and dishonor.  Buying an American car is...'meh.' 

Anyway, this extra car allowed me to take one of two cars with me back to Provo--the dying minivan or the 97' Plymouth Breeze.  I kind of wanted the Breeze, since it gets good gas mileage and has always been pretty reliable.  It's the car I learned to drive in and is the car I drove throughout high school.  We named the Breeze TLC--The Learning Car--since I usually had my 'learning-to-drive' moments in it.

This is what the Breeze looked like when it was new.  Christmas tree green.  This is closer to what it looks like now:

As worn out as the car was, it still had some good nostalgia attached to it; like the time I hit the gas instead of the brake inside of the garage, or the time I accidentally hit a mailbox during my junior year.  FYI, I am a very safe driver now with a perfectly clean record, so please don't be scared of driving with me. 

Well, it turns out that TLC's windshield wipers decided to stop working the day before I was going to take it back to Provo, and I can't drive a car without windshield wipers in the snow and rain that's been happening lately.  So I ended up taking the minivan back to Provo. 

It's a 1990-something white GMC Safari and has been servicing our family since before I was in sixth grade.  The van has taken our family to Disneyland on many summer vacations.  During the last trip, it died somewhere inbetween Las Vegas and St. George, which was one of the main indicators that it was time for a new van. 

I wasn't too keen on picking up a vehicle that has a history of dying in the middle of the desert, but a ride's a ride.  The Safari  has got other issues as well.  It's got Kool-Aid stains in the drink holders and smells like McDonald's french fries.  It has the turning radius of the Titanic.  The driver side window will not roll up if you roll it down, which makes drive-thru's awkward.  I don't like having to open the door to talk to the order taking lady.  Also, the trunk will slam on your head if you aren't watching it.  Fortunately, my family keeps a pole in the back to prop the trunk door open when you need to.

I decided that in order to feel attached to the car, I need to name it.  In all seriousness, the first name I was kind of partial to was Snooki.  Here was my reasoning:

-It's trashy

-It's kind of wide and clumsy on the roads

-It's a party van

-I'm not a huge fan of it

-It has a short life-expectancy (too far?  sorry)

-Someday, it will be legendary (in Provo)

But in the end, I settled for a more manly name--Maxibus the Man Van.  Anytime I hear Maximus, I immediately think "Gladiator," which is a way cooler mental image than Snooki.  Also, I think it's kind of clever.  My roommate suggested we hook up a disco ball in the back and maybe get some sweet flame graphics on it.  We shall see.

UPDATE:  On January 9th, 2011, Maxibus the Man Van died in the Church parking lot; leaving my roommate and me stranded in Arctic-level temperatures.  His fuel pump suffered from a failure to keep living.  Maxibus has since recieved a donor pump from my parents and is on the quick road to recovery.