Danny ChaiUtterly boring, but whatever.
1. It’s a light blue 1991 Toyota Corolla. It’s almost older than some of my coworkers, which is frightening.
2. Various family members have offered (pleaded) to give us their old car(s) and get rid of mine. I can’t do it. Even if we accepted, I’d rather get rid of Jieun’s car than my own.
3. The reason for this is pride. I have immense pride in my car. I mean that in the worst sense, the sin sense, the I think I’m better than others sense. I am proud that I have an old, beat-up car. Other people talk about driving a car until it dies; I really want to do it.
4. I’ve always had pride in flouting the ghetto. My first car was a yellow ’82 Datsun Sentra that my mom’s coworker sold to us because her daughter was too ashamed to be seen in it. I was quite the opposite. Anyway, given my pride, I deserve no credit for having my car because I’ve given myself all the credit already. I fully realize this. Still, I love my car. To my extended family’s chagrin. I’ve actually chilled out a lot about cars in general. Who cares what people drive. Life is too short.
5. Except guys driving Miatas or new Volkswagon Bugs. That’s unacceptable. I will not change my mind about this.
5. One thing I love about it is that I don’t have to worry about it and it thus saves me money.
6. For example, I haven’t gotten a car wash in 6+ years. I’m super cheap, and the difference between a clean, run-down car with worn paint isn’t that great from a dirty, run-down car with worn paint. I depend on rain to clean off the surface dirt. Bird poop I scrape off with a window cleaner at the gas station. Sometimes.
7. It also has various scratches, dents, and dings accumulated through the years that I never fixed because why bother. It’s so nice not to have to worry about stuff like that. Especially when you park in the absurdly small parking spaces in the Yahoo lot.
8. The ceiling is falling down. I looked into replacing it, but it would cost ~$200. Not worth it for a car worth ~$1000. So I keep it up with staples, periodically replacing the ones that fall out.
9. The car has been baked so much and it’s so old that all the plastic in the car is brittle and is starting to break. This includes the cup holder, the driver’s front side manual window handle, and the inside brake light.
10. The left rear door does not open. The outside handle stopped working first. So I’d climb in the back to open it. Then that broke also. So that seat is essentially unusable, as the other seat is occupied by a children’s car seat.
11. There are 2 huge cracks in the windshield, one that spans more than 3/4 the glass. People used to tell me that it’s dangerous. Eh. It’s been there for 6+ years and hasn’t spread much. Especially since I stopped getting car washes. (I think when they windexed the windows, pressing on the glass made the cracks spread.)
12. Despite it being ghetto, It has a 6 CD changer installed. In 1999, maybe 2000, Best Buy had this deal where if you subscribed to MSN Live, you got $200 (or was it $400?) credit to spend at the store. Someone analyzed the details and realized that, under California law, you could cancel the subscription at any time and keep the credit. This got published in the Merc, and was verified by MS, so me, Dave and his Korean-FOB roommate who took showers while standing in front of the sink went to the Best Buy I think in Milpitas. It was insane. Jam packed with crazy, excited people. Kind of felt like Christmas, the most jovial atmosphere I have ever seen at a retail store. Anyway, this lasted just one or two days – MS (who covered the losses) changed the language after every Best Buy in the state sold out every item in the store around $200. But it was awesome.
13. Sad thing is, I was too lazy to fill out my rebate forms, so I ended up paying for it myself. Ever since then, I’ve been maniacal about tracking my rebates.
14. Because it’s so old, we think of Jieun’s 10-year-old Camry with 100,000+ miles as the “new” car. It’s all about perspective.
15. My dad bought the car new. His previous car (An ’85 Civic) was totaled when it (with my dad driving me, Willy and Quoc to Bellarmine) was hit by a Salvation Army truck that ran a red light. It’s actually amazing that we weren’t seriously hurt. We ended up going to school that day and asked the officer to write us a note explaining why we were late so we wouldn’t get JUG (Justice Under God – Jesuit school’s version of detention).
16. It’s a stick shift. I once tried to teach Jieun to drive manual on it. We went to a big, empty parking lot. She got into first and second gear that day from a standing stop and never stalled once, which is astounding. Then she declared herself done and never progressed to 3rd+ gear (which is trivial after 1st and 2nd) and shifting while turning. Yet another one of those things in which she “knows” she’s awesome but just doesn’t try. I wish she’d try. She’ll need to know how to drive stick when she goes on the Amazing Race with Karen.
17. It has 184,000 miles on it. That’s a lot, but it should be more; I hit 100,000 miles in 1998, driving back from KCPC. As I recall, I celebrated by treating everyone in the car (Jieun, Clara, and Kevbo) to dinner. Since we always take Jieun’s Camry when we ride together, and I take the train to work, it doesn’t accrue a lot of mileage anymore.
18. I drove it to the Bay Area from Houston, solo, in 1998. That was a crazy drive. I started late, like around 11 AM, after having breakfast with my parents at “French Gourmet Bakery”. I then drove straight to Lordsburg, New Mexico, stopping only for gas (eating in the car food I got at the stations). I’m fairly certain that I one point, I went insane. In the span of an hour, I felt total euphoria, almost to the point of tears, then extreme sadness, to the point where I wanted to turn back and drop out of school. That’s when I figured it was time to sleep.
19. I killed the rest of the trip the next day. I was only planning to make it to L.A., but after driving that long, the 6 hour drive to Stanford felt like nothing.
20. I drove through Redlands on that drive. It has the most disgusting smog I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how people live there.