So, there I was, adding the blue yarn to my sweater. The dusky blue that I really love, that’s one of my all-time favorite shades. The color of a car I used to have …

Then I realized. It’s September 2nd. The anniversary of the day I GOT that blue car. How funny is that! Fifteen years ago tonight, I was the proud new owner of a 1994 blue Saturn SL2, and I’ve got proof. The Saturn dealer sent me a calendar to commemorate the event. AND they sent me Gimme Jimmy cookies in a tin shaped like a tire, too.

And, of COURSE I still have the calendar! I never actually used it as a calendar–it still starts with the January 1994 page–but naturally I kept it for the picture. That was a big day for me.

This had been the first car I’d bought entirely by myself, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled with the whole experience. Before that, I drove a 1988 VW Golf GL, in Champagne, and I absolutely adored that car. I got that my junior year in college and was thrilled with it. The only thing I ever had trouble with with that car was the tires. Even when its gas filter clogged up one time, when I was visiting my best friend in Massachusetts, it STILL got me home. (It stalled every time I took my foot off the gas, but luckily there wasn’t much traffic.) Granted, I couldn’t get to work the next morning, but still–it didn’t leave me stranded in the middle of Connecticut, either, so no complaints.

I hadn’t actually bought that car, though. My parents did. It was in my name, but while I was in school, they made the monthly payments. I took them over when I graduated and got a job. When that car was 6 years old, I decided it was time for a change, but at the time, my sister was in desperate need of a car. She had moved out to Pennsylvania and had driven her old car into the ground with all the miles she had to put on. But money was so tight, on one salary, they just couldn’t afford a new car. So, I sold her the VW.

I printed up a mock-up of the window sticker from the original purchase. (Yes, I had kept that, too.) The deal was that she could pay me each month whatever they could afford until the car was paid off–and I let her do the bookkeeping for it. When, years later, she told me it was paid, I believed her (grin). And in the meantime, I put down some of my own money for this Saturn. And, since I was being such a good sister, my parents chipped in the extra $2000 so that I could get the higher-powered model rather than the base model.

Yep. This was a good car, too.

And, I sure did like that color!

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