One Daughter, Four Cars.

My middle daughter (age 23) does not have the Luck of the Cars. *sigh* Yesterday we bid farewell to her fourth car.

She totalled her first car at age 16, just days after she received her driver's license. This car was Mr. Swami's former commuter car - a Toyota Corolla, I think. She and her BF of the moment were on their way back from Valley Fair (a local amusement park) when they rear-ended another car.

With your kid's first accident you are just so darn glad they are okay!!! You don't look at them all steely-eyed or cross-examine them too closely - just hug them and think thank goodness! So it took me a few weeks to figure out that her freaking boyfriend - not her - had been the driver. But by then we had already sold the lie to our insurance company and the court system, so legally it was her accident. Daughter was given the steely-eyed lecture then.

Since Mr. Swami had a new car he still liked we then bought her a used car, a Mazda of some kind. It was a dark, purply red color, sporty looking, loaded. She drove this car for a couple of years until it mysteriously died in her dorm parking lot at the U of Wisconsin. She must have neglected something critical because the car wasn't that old. I know she drove it hard because the car had multiple dings on the body.

So Mr. Swami got himself a new commuter car and gave her his old one. This car was totalled in a one car ice storm accident. Daughter was crossing the I-94 bridge over the St Croix River and hit an icy patch. The car did a 180, then slammed into and slid along the concrete median divider, neatly peeling off the passenger side of the car but leaving the driver's side intact and DD shaken but unhurt. Bye-bye car. Totalled, but an understandable accident.

At this time Mr. Swami had decided that he didn't like his Toyota Prism commuter car and wanted something larger with more pizazz and options - so DD got the Prism. This car took her through the rest of college and lasted until just this week.

The car had developed a cylinder problem. We knew about it, but DD didn't want to take the Prism into her dad's regular car shop because she thought they were too expensive. She found some backyard mechanic who was going to do the work but then he injured his leg somehow and couldn't take it in. DD went looking for 3rd option. We told her and reminded her that this was a critical system and needed to be fixed. We would pay to have it fixed - just take it to the damn car shop. She dilly-dallied and procrastinated and drove for a month doing nothing. So of course the car froze up one night on the freeway with a blown engine. Bye-bye Prism. We donated the car to a place that offers no-tuition mechanic training to low income students. We will get a PPV tax deduction.

Now DD is up commuter creek without any wheels. We will not be buying her another car, lol. So she and her BF are driving his mom's SUV which gets about 8 mpg and has transmission issues. At least she is looking for full-time work with a bit more urgency this week!

One daughter, four cars. *sigh*