Day 288: Adventures with "the Turd"...

My car kinda broke last night...very sad day. So today we called around and a good friend of ours said that I could borrow his car for a while, which is awesome! I've heard stories about this car of his. He's offered it to several people to drive and there are some people who have actually refused to drive it. It is one of only 4 cars of it's kind in the entire Southeast US (Nissan Axxess). This is because this car wasn't very popular in the US so no one really bought them... they call his car "the turd" cause it's brown and basically looks like a piece of crap. It's like a little mini van.

I had never actually seen this car until today. Walking into the back parking lot to pick up my "new ride", I'm not gonna lie, kinda made me anxious. There was a truck parked in front of "the turd" and it kinda felt like that moment on Extreme Makeover, right before they unveil the house...except instead of elated feelings of joy and anxious anticipation, it was fear and slight amusement. You can't look at this car and not laugh...which I'm not even sure it could be considered a car. It drives more like a truck (S-10 to be exact), is the size of a car, but looks like a van.

So trying to stifle my laughter (unsuccessfully, I might add), Trooper jumps in, cranks it up, and enticingly revs it up so we could hear the gentle rumbling whine of the engine. Meanwhile, Jeremy is falling into hysterical fits of laughter as he holds his iPhone in preparation for the moment that I have to actually get in it. After being told about its issues, temperamental tendencies, and how to deal with all of it (oh and putting some air in the tires and checking the oil), I climbed in and drove off into the sunset...

Features of "the Turd":

• manual windows
• stick shift
• no air conditioning
• crazy automatic seat belt that automatically moves when you open the door (like my old car)
• tape deck
• speedometer (which works sometimes)
• sliding rear doors
• oh and a random jerking that apparently happens now and again which can only be solved by turning off the car and restarting it (I'm a little worried about this happening while I'm on the road and not in an area where I can just turn it off...pray for me)

But despite all of this, the car actually drives pretty well...but it was a little embarrassing when I drove up to the Automotive place that has my car and all of the mechanics were leaning to get a better look at the car as I parked (I knew they were looking cause once I got inside they all pretended like they had to go somewhere or that they had just finished doing something important...but none of them actually left the room...they all just kept glancing out the window.)