the car named Ruby

Ruby and I met when I was 16 years old.

We have been together for 6 years….

She was my very first car.

Ruby was a big part of my life. I could never forget her because she carries so many memories…

• Doing donuts in the school parking lot every Wednesday morning before the bell rang.
• Car surfing in the church parking lot with Ray, Roger, Derek, and Joanna.
• Blow out tires on the highway!! =P
• Trips to California with the girls. We only made it to Tonopah and then turned around… lol!
• The time Yotchie, Darryl and I decided it would be fun to race our cars... and once the cop finally caught up to us he slapped us all with criminal speeding and aggressive driving tickets…we were in the paper the next day…my parents were so proud...jk ;)
• Getting my tires slashed by this punk kid who was just upset that he got beat up by a girl =) haha!
• My first car accident with Gus in the high school parking lot…Jen and I thought the ruckus was because we were getting too crunk. Lol!
• Getting towed in Flagstaff for parking downtown and having to drive out to this car lot at midnight, which reminded me of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and having to talk to some creepy guy with overalls and a missing tooth.
• The time I drove into central phoenix to pick up Dylan because he was stranded and drive him and his buddy home at 2 a.m.
• Jen’s wedding day! Filling the passenger seat with my beautiful best friend and her huge wedding dress and driving out to Mesa for the biggest day of her life! <3
• Talks in my drive away with Roger till 2 am
• Driving around with Jen everyday of the summer! Making stops at QT so often that we became regulars, driving through Avondale just to see the cobblestone, road trips to Lake Pleasant, and getting hit on by guys driving by. “)
• Car accident with my neighbor…when she barreled out of her driveway right into me! Ugh!
• The time I was driving down Sarival and a guy ran his stop sign so I had to swerve to miss his car, then I swerved to miss a light pole (coming within inches of it!), and then my car jumped up on the sidewalk practically in someone’s front yard!
• Yotchie taking the muffler off my car so it would sound like a race car and then taking it out to the illegal street races! (I was pretty gangster in my younger years! Haha!)
• Drag racing on with Ray on Sarival and driving on the opposite side of the street.
• Trips into the woods of Flagstaff, AZ for a bon fire and almost getting my car stuck in the mud.
• Driving to Macayo’s to teepee Rays car in the parking lot with Jen, but he caught us and chased us around the neighborhood
• Backing into my grandparent’s car. Ops! They learned their lesson and never parked there again…
• I was with Yotchie, Jen and David, I attempted to pass a car and an on-coming car was heading straight for us I had to gun-it to make the gap! I thought we were going to die.
• Jen and I bumping Lil Wayne and all of our other hardcore jams ;)
• Getting hit on in the McDonalds drive-thru
• Blizzards in Flagstaff that covered my car!
• Trips to Scottsdale with the girls to go dancing for Jen’s 18^th b-day
• Yotchie and I finding a cat on the streets and sticking it in my car thinking we could keep it
• The time the boys came to visit me at work (The UPS Store) and put a heart on my car made out of flowers <3
• The time Ray broke into my car and trashed it as retaliation …
• Party hopping in Flagstaff
• The time Roger threw tomatoes at my car and I drove off furious! lol >:-{
• Driving around Wildflower with Calvin
• Late night talks with Pat in his drive way
• Sitting in the Roseberry parking lot with T and having an intense heart to heart
• The time Jen broke the mirror cover off so the light is constantly on. Way to go bf!
• Leaving the radio antenna up while going through a car wash and it broke off...
• The time someone tried to pick my locks and didn’t succeed, but I couldn't use my passenger side door.
• My car alarm kept going off and I had no way to turn it off because my dismiss button was broken, so I ended up just cutting the wires.
• The millions of times I had to jump my car because I accidentally left the lights on :-]
• Missing my internship because my car wouldn’t start! Later I found out there was a kill switch underneath that I accidentally hit and it made my car shut down.
• Late night trips to Tempe
• When Derick stole my car and held it for ransom until I gave him a full bag of Red Jolly Ranchers
• Driving to 7^th Street every week for dance classes.
• The time Jen and I picked up a hitchhiker =)

This list could go on and on…

Ruby was a great car. She wasn’t in perfect condition and for the 7 years I owned her, she became a little bit more loved on as the years went on. The leather interior was cracked. Her paint had sun spots from the Arizona heat. The tint was bubbling on the back window so you could barely see out of it. To get a CD out of the player you had to turn the windshield wipers on first. Sometimes if she wouldn’t start right away I would have to get out and give her a little kick and then she would be ready to go! ;) She had a dent in the trunk for the longest time and I left it because I thought it added character. She had 140,000+ miles on her and she had definitely seen a lot of the road in her lifetime. She was always up for an adventure and she kept plugging along with me no matter how hard I pushed her to make it up that mountain. She was a trooper!

Ruby, you will be missed, but never forgotten. It sincerely makes me sad to have to say goodbye, but I thank you for being the best first car a kid could have ever asked for! You were there for everything and I will always cherish the memories.

P.S. - if you are reading this post and have any other memories of Ruby, please feel free to comment and add them :)