Civic-Minded

This is the story of a car

When I moved to this gorgeous garbage pit by the sea, I left behind a lot of things, the most significant of which might have been the New York subway system. I needed a car, but acquiring one seemed an advanced calculus life move, and in my mental state I was barely able to do basic addition (laundry). So for six months, I didn’t have one. And it sucked!

In a dream world, I support a life not dependent on fossil fuels. But unfortunately, I live in the hell real world and this hell world becomes a deeper-pit-of-hell world without a car. I’ve written about the public transportation situation here before (it’s bad), and I bet you the large number of people who rely on that terrible system as their primary means of transportation would tell you, to a person, that if given the choice they would absolutely drive a car. We’ve all seen Speed (I watched it two months ago).

Luckily, my friend Nicole is very good at buying cars. She’s so good at buying cars that several friends who moved from New York to LA have taken her with them to go car shopping, in an advisory capacity. She’s also good at buying real estate. She’s good at a lot of money stuff. She’s a Virgo.

Around the time I moved to LA, she was upgrading her two-door 2006 Honda Civic for (naturally) an almost identical car in BMW. And so she gave me her old car. Gifting a car? Beyond generous. Gifting not having to shop for a car? Priceless.

AI-generated image of my car (JK this is just a random two door civic pic I pulled from the internet)

As a former New Yorker, I was skeptical of how life-changing a car could be in this city. Immediately my ignorance lifted. I went from feeling like a prisoner in my own home to an explorer, out to conquer new worlds, those new worlds being in places not readily accessible by the Metro Red Line. There is a distinct pleasure in not carrying your groceries a couple of miles, or loading them onto the bus. Material things, like cars, can make you happy and in that way, I sort of understand why Jeff Bezos bought that yacht that wouldn’t fit under the bridge.

The Civic had its quirks, including a water tank that kept overheating and stranded my friend Bridger and me at a North Hollywood gas station for a few hours. (Thanks to the kindness of a complete stranger who I will be indebted to until my dying day, we were able to repair the issue and be on our merry, cautious way). There were also several side mirror incidents AKA the side mirrors got knocked off a few times. My strategy of duct-taping said mirror got a little dicey on a solo drive to Yosemite for a friend’s wedding. A lot of the trip was spent glancing at the mirror, watching it wobble threateningly in the headwinds of I-5. After that incident, I learned how to order a side mirror from the Internet and attach it to the car. I guess it was good to learn a new skill but also it took a lot of time. Ultimately, it’s way better to just have a professional do it for you, as Jeff Bezos understands.

After my mother visited LA and noticed the duct tape, she got a new bee in her extremely bee-friendly bonnet about the car being “unsafe.” (FOR THE RECORD my mechanic had repeatedly told me that Civic was extremely safe and would ultimately outlive both of us, but to quote Frank Ocean, sort of, what’s a mechanic to a mom?) A few months later, I upgraded to a 2014 four-door Corolla in a deal brokered by said mother.

In the spirit of the sisterhood of the traveling Civic, I passed it along to a friend who had been car-less and trapped, like a freed prisoner passing the keys they just liberated themselves with back to those still trapped in their cells. The only condition was that when he was ready to move on, he passes it to the next person in need, and ad infinitum, until the Civic is the only trace of us left, remaining solid and whole (perhaps minus a side mirror) as the seas creep to the feet of the mountains and the mountains crumble to the sea.