LaNelle's hilarious column article

Okay..she's gonna kill me but this is too funny to pass up! LaNelle called me today in a panic. She had one hour to write a column for one of her journalism classes. Like me, she is a very fast writer once she gets an idea...this was suppose to be a funny biographical moment written for a newspaper/magazine column. She needed an idea because 3 people would be chosen to read theirs and her professor always chose her...I was half asleep but mentioned something about the little camry she drove to school and she said, "thanks Mom...I can do that. Gotta go write it. Call you later." and she was gone. she wrote it in less than an hour, she got picked to read and the class and professor laughed hysterically. She reads it so very well that it may lose something in print but I had to post it...she took a little poetic liscense but not much. Those of you who know Pete well will see him all over this!! She wrote it so fast, she didn't edit for grammar/spelling but anyway...Enjoy...

My High School was all about status. I lived in what most would consider a rich town where spending limits were almost non-existent for most high school students. Daddy’s credit card had a place in most everyone’s wallet. Classes were full of the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, and CEO’s. Six digit pay checks were common in almost every house hold. And the student parking lots were evidence of this fact. Row after row was filled with the newest Lexus, BMW, or Mercedes which were all bright and shinny just waiting for their teenage owners. High School was about status, and the parking lot was where that status was displayed.
I was the second of seven children and though my father brought home one of those six digit pay checks, he was more concerned about being a dad that taught his children character than being a dad that was simply the provider of his teenage daughter’s status symbol.
I was surprised when the weekend after my fifteenth birthday (which was the big driving age birthday in South Carolina) he told me that we were going to go out and buy my first car. I could not believe it! The dad, who had always stood firm in his belief that status didn’t matter as much as character, was actually going to allow me to get my very own new car. My older sister had not had this luxury. When she was old enough to drive, my dad gladly handed over to her the keys to his old dingy faded brown Chavette that had holes in the floorboard and interior so worn that the yellow foam underneath it showed through. My sister swallowed her pride and drove it to and from school. She didn’t really have any other choice so she decided to at least be happy about it and called it her “vet.”
The memory of that old car had worried me for years. I fully expected a replay of that experience when it came time for me to drive. But as we left on our car shopping adventure, my worries were put to rest. I was getting my very own car today and I was finally going to be able to join the group of status worthy new car driving students.
But the worries quickly returned as we pulled up to the parking lot of the county auto auction. Was my dad serious? Was he really planning on buying me a car from an auction? Oh, he was more than serious, he was excited. As we walked around looking at the cars before the auction began, the worry turned into panic as I realized that none of these cars would ever provide me with any kind of status other than loser.
My dad didn’t seem to notice the panic that I was experiencing and happily bid on and won what became my first car. He was excited because for $875 he had acquired a car with an automatic transmission, cruise control, and even air conditioning. As we drove home, he focused on these amazing luxuries that I would be enjoying as a new car driver. But I wasn’t a new car driver, I was the pathetic driver of an un-pretty, white with rust, 1988 Toyota Camry. But I had no other choice, so like my older sister I tried to optimistically accept my fate.
On the first day of school I parked my little humble Camry in the side parking lot as far from the “status symbol” lot as possible. I closed the door and walked as quickly away from that car as I could. I didn’t want anyone to notice that the pathetic white run down car was mine. In my mind it would have been better to not have a car than to have such an embarrassing one.
I was able to avoid the reality of my car ownership for the first weeks of school. No one had noticed and I certainly had not brought it to anyone’s attention that I had what might possibly be the most embarrassing car in the whole school.
Then the day came that I learned that sometimes you just can’t hide from reality. As I ran through the rain to my car, I had no idea that that humble little Camry had decided that today was the day to make her appearance known. As I pulled out of my parking spot and half way into the row of cars waiting to exit the parking lot, my car stopped. Trying to remain calm, I attempted to restart the car….nothing. I tried again this time praying that my stupid car would start before anyone noticed me in it. This time the most awful, loud screeching noise came out of my little humble car and carried across the entire parking lot. Still trying to convince myself that maybe no one had noticed, I heard a tapping on my window. There stood a very attractive, senior guy, motioning for me to roll down my window. I swallowed hard to hold back the tears as I rolled down and listened as he asked me if I needed any help. The hiding was over. The sneaking around so that no one would know that I drove the old white Camry was over. I was blocking traffic, I was causing the worst sound imaginable, I was the driver of the embarrassing old car, and everyone knew it. With the attractive senior at my side I tried to start my car one more time. Hallelujah, it cooperated. I drove home embarrassed and annoyed that I couldn’t have just had a normal dad that understood the importance of high school status.
That night I told my dad the story of the most embarrassing day of my life in hopes that he would have sympathy. He didn’t. He laughed and told me that he was glad that I had such a character building experience and maybe I should have just been nicer to my car from the beginning and then she wouldn’t have had to teach me a lesson. I learned more than one lesson that day. I learned that you can’t hide from what you are and that you can’t trust your dad to understand the importance of high school status symbols. And now when my younger siblings come to me with their “character building car” horror stories, I can smile and say, “You might as well accept it, because when it comes to dad, some things never change.”