...except after "C"

Some blogs have FAQ Thursdays. Some have a weekly dose of Spurgeon or Owen. Some have devotional Mondays. One sports a day of the week devoted to going without a particular undergarment. Mine has been totally random with no sense of obligation to post on any particular topic or in any particular format. Well, I've decided that there is always room for a top ten list. So I'm going with the Friday Top Ten. (I am also simultaneously holding a competition to select the new logo package for this weekly highlight. The winning entry will receive one apple fritter and a Wawa latte.) So without further ado, I offer you...

The top 10 cars of which I have been owner/principal driver:

10. Early 1980s puke-plum Chevy Citation.
    This car was a mistake from the day my dad brought it home. It was his initial solution to the four-drivers-in-household dilemma. It died the day a certain unnamed sibling attempted to demonstrate the concept of "reverse-lockout". The transmission was last seen somewhere along Wilson Road between Foulk and Shipley.
9. 1978 powder-blue Camaro.
   OK, so I was never really the "owner" of this car. In fact, I traded my Celica straight up for about a month to drive this ridiculous red neck gas guzzler. My friend wanted something with a little better mileage, and I wanted to be cool. I took it once or twice to New Jersey in my cowboy boots to go line dancing, and promptly traded it back. I did end up with a fancy new pair of black wingtips out of the deal. (If you don't count this car, then I would have to say the blue Subaru that I shared with a certain unnamed sibling for a summer.)
8. 1988 blue Toyota Tercel.
   I bought this car to impress my future father-in-law. The car I had been driving was so beat up after having driven it through a barbed-wire fence, I was certain he wasn't happy seeing his daughter in it. I thought it was an upgrade, and while the gas mileage was phenomenal, the thing just couldn't keep up. It did, however, mark my entrance back into the happy world of standard transmissions.
7. 1983 brown Chevette.
   Even though I almost never could claim to be the "primary" driver of this car, as a certain unnamed sibling pretty much always had dibs. However, I did go on my very first ever "car date" in this one. It had the old-school radio with the push button presets on the radio dial. There were at least a couple others in our church youth group with similar vehicles and they formed the 'vette club.
6. 2002 red Honda Accord.
   The only car I've ever purchased brand-new. I made exactly one automobile finance payment in my lifetime before paying it off. But it's not mine. It will always be my wife's.
5. 1979 blue Honda Accord.
   I think my dad "bought" this car for $100 when my oldest cousin went away to a college that didn't allow freshmen to have vehicles on campus, and then sold it back for $100 when he came home for summer. However, this one got its ranking based on the entertainment factor of the story about the flames from the engine while double dating during my junior year of high school.
4. 2000 blue Honda Accord.
   I "inherited" this car from the former youth pastor, and it serves me well to this very day.
3. 1984 rusty-brown Toyota Celica.
   Ah, so many memories. It was the car that I drove back and forth to college. It was the car I used to woo women. It was the car that got forced off the road and snowed in at the Red Roof Inn near Pittsburg on the way back from Urbana. It was the car that got hit by Tanya Tucker's tour bus on Interstate 81. It was the car that made the trip back from the U2 concert in Philly for an 8 am Japanese class at Virginia Tech in record time. It was the car I used to hurl me and my unsuspecting friends through the air at breakneck speeds over the rolling hills of the Brandywine Valley. It was the car I drove to my first real job and took me on my first real date with my wife-to-be (that she will attest to... I would still assert that if you call and invite her, drive her car with only her and you in it, and pay for the ticket, then it's a date... BOCTAOE...).
2. 1997 green Acura Integra.
   This will probably be the closest thing to a real sports car that I ever own. I bought out the lease from my father when he bought out the lease from a certain unnamed sibling. He got a pink-champagne grandmother-mobile. I got this. Sorry dad.
1. 1972 red Volkswagen Superbeetle.
   This was my dream car. I saw it in the paper for only $1,000 and I had about half that money saved up and ready to plunk down and go halfsies with my dad. When we got there, it was like that proverbial picture with the spotlight shining down from heaven and the angel chorus singing. Then the owner told us there was a slight problem - even though the body was in pristine condition and the engine ran perfectly, the brakes had seized up and we couldn't test drive it. He said if we could get it to move he'd cut the price in half. A couple sledge-hammer whacks later, the car was mine. The only thing wrong with it was old tires and rims, and some pitting on the chrome parts. No problem, I found another VW Bug, same year and model, with a lousy paint job, engine problems and beautiful wheels and accessories. I bought it for $500, stripped off the parts I needed for mine, put the old parts back on it and sold it for $500. Sweet. The car's name was Butch. May he rest in pieces.

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