coche

I miss having a car which leads to the conversation, "Why is there a fire extinguisher back here?"; "Oh, in case my car catches on fire again."

I miss having a car that had a rope for the emergency brake release. (I have had two emergency brakes break off in my hand, but one of those cars was not my own.)

I miss having a car where the brake lights only function properly due to a church bulletin and a paperclip. (Paperclips are amazingly useful.)

I miss having a car where you cannot open the driver's door from the outside so you have to go through the passenger side, but you also sometimes couldn't open the driver's door from the inside either without rolling down the window and tweaking the outside handle while you simultaneously use the handle on the inside.

I miss having a car where there was only one functional window wiper and during a pretty decent downpour I had to have my window rolled down to see better (and to keep it from getting too hot in the car, because I had to have the heater on so the car wouldn't overheat) while going down the freeway, eyes squinted to protect from the rain. And then having the steering wheel get wet and turning into a black liquid goo which wiped off on everything that touched it. (I am pretty sure my passenger thought we were going to die.)

I miss having a car where manipulating the temperature gauge was like a ping pong battle. (It entertained me over many freeway treks.)

I miss having a car where a random bell would chime ever so often. It would sometimes have pretty talkative streaks.

I miss having a car which I can easily recognize in any parking lot. (Though I did have that one occurrence of mistaken car identity... Good thing they had fuzzy seat covers, or I might have driven off with it.)

I miss having a car which would periodically turn the stereo off, just because it felt like it.

I miss having a car where every trip you take you wonder if it will be the last your car makes. (Which surprisingly only occurred once.)

(And on that note) I miss the opportunity to familiarize myself with the freeway callboxes. (Which just so you know, they are solar powered and can run out of power pretty quickly.)

I miss having a car where the "brake lamp" light (not the brake light which would signify the E-brake was on or I was low on brake fluid) kept coming on for no discernible reason but to keep me from having all the lights off on the display. (As in, by all accounts all of my brake lights were working.)

I miss having a car which forces you to familiarize yourself with its innards, one way or another.

I miss having a car that provided an excuse for people not wanting to drive with you. (Now the only excuse is the quality of the driver.)