I've been listening to too much "This American Life".

My first car was a red 2001 Kia Sorento. The day I got it was one of the best in my life. I took her on the road immediately. She had some miles on her, she had bad gas mileage and she had the dings and dents you'd expect. I saw none of that. To me, this car was perfect, a shining beacon of hope on four wheels.

When I took her on the highway for the first time, my heart felt like it could burst. As we hit 90 together, she was shaking almost as much as my hands but I wasn't scared. We could do this. We could do anything. For the next few years, we were inseparable. Me and my Kia were like Joanie and Chachi, Burt and Ernie, the Citizen and his cane. As my friends could attest, I would barely make it any further than the mailbox without her.

She never had any trouble on the long, hard drives I took her on, so I kept right on thinking she was invincible. The fender benders we got in barely left a scratch on her. She was tough, and I was too young and too damn dumb to even know what fear was.

Time took its toll, but in my eyes, it was the kind of toll you pay on some back-country road with no name. If I had really looked, I would've seen what my friends were already kind enough to inform me of every time they braved a journey in the old girl: it was more like taking the Jersey Turnpike and losing your ticket. The scratch along the right side from a particularly sneaky fence, the stud marks on the roof and hood from people who cared more about looking cool than about my precious ride, the dent on the bumper from when a tire gave out south of Yonkers and left us stranded in North Jersey. From time to time, the check engine light started coming on, and before I had time to worry, off it would go again.

The first time it started acting up, I just threw some more fluid in the radiator, changed the oil, replaced a couple belts. When the mechanic warned me of the cliff up ahead, I just threw on my blindfold and slammed the accelerator harder.

The damage started adding up. She was no longer the hyper-responsive blaze of glory I had made my first road trip in all those years ago. I laid off the gas some, I no longer attempted the ambitious 40 mile an hour U-turns I had become somewhat infamous for. Too little, too late.

One day I was taking her home from work and everything went wrong at once. The heat started rising, the steering gave out and the suspension took the day off. I pulled over for a while, thinking a little time to cool down would somehow fix the unfixable and that she would get me home safe, as she always had before. We made it a few more miles before she gave out entirely. I stayed in the car for about an hour, half to shield me from the rain, half out of some foolish belief that against all odds she would run again for me. I eventually found myself standing outside smoking a cigarette and waiting for a tow. I wondered how I got there, in the middle of nowhere standing next to a motionless hunk of Korean steel. It would've been obvious to anyone else, but not me. I was too attached.

I drive a Corolla now, and I get the oil changed every 20,000 miles like a real grown-up. Everytime I see a red Sorento, I wonder if its mine. I wonder if its the same car that took me from one end of the coast to the other in a misguided attempt at romance, the same car that had seen the consumption of nearly as much box wine as gasoline, the same beautiful fucking vehicle that got me safely around the wrong side of 20th street all those nights where we tried to turn baking soda into magic and winding up with regrets and sore throats instead. I saw a family in one the other day and I was happy to think it might have been mine, it just felt right. She was never meant for high-speed dashes across the state line, this was what she was best at.

I miss that car, but fuck if this Corolla isn't a better fit. Maybe it's the car, more likely it's me but I don't think I'm going to find myself waiting for a tow any time soon.