Your car is your best friend

Writing 110
9 September 2013
Your Car is Your Best Friend When I was seventeen I was told one of the most important things that I would learn in my life. I was told that your car is your best friend. I didn’t believe this at all, the person who told this to me always said the craziest things. After going through a terrifying experience with a friend and seeing her views about what had happened, I soon learned that this lesson was very true. Your car is more important to you that you would think it is. My mom’s fiancé bought me my first car. It was a red 1995 Ford Mustang. The first time I seen this car in the driveway I was overwhelmed with emotion. My very own car! It was the most beautiful thing ive ever seen! It was so shiny and bright on the outside, and the inside was all black cloth seats that were very clean and they were the most comfortable seats I have ever sat in. I had been saving money for a car so the same day I got the car I was able to go to the DMV to get it registered and get the plates. After I got home, My mom’s fiancé put the plates on and the inspection sticker. I was ready to go for a drive! Before I was able to leave the house my mom’s fiancé, George, stopped to speak with me. He told me that this car was now my best friend. He said to always keep up on the maintenance and keep it nice and clean. He also told me not to pack a bunch of friends in the car because I would get careless and be more concerned with being cool than being safe. The last thing he told me was to not let any of my friends drive my car for any reason. He said they wouldn’t care about it like I did and would care if it was damaged. After walking away and getting in my car I scoffed at what he said. I already knew to take care of my car, and my friends would respect the fact that I could drive us around wherever we wanted. How wrong I was. I loved my new car, and so did my friends. After about four months of having my car I realized I had put just about 10,000 miles on it. Wow! I was so surprised; I hadn’t realized how much I drove around or drove my friends around really. I got to thinking, most of it was because my friends needed a ride or they would encourage me to go someplace. None of them barley ever gave me gas money. I had saved all my gas receipts and counted how much I was spending in gas. It was about a hundred dollars a week! That was a lot of money for someone who only worked at Wendy’s. I realized that I had been spending more in gas than anything else, and most of all, it was for other people to get free rides. After figuring all this out I made all my friends give me money any time they wanted a ride or wanted to drive someplace. Soon no one was asking for rides anymore. Go figure. A couple weeks later I had gotten an oil change on my car and a tune up so everything was running nicely. I went to stay the night with my friend Brianna at her house because we hadn’t seen each other in a while. The next day I felt horrible, my allergies were acting up so bad because she had five cats and five dogs. We had planned on going to the mall that day but I had a head splitting headache and was not up for driving at all. Brianna asked me if she could drive my car so we could still go. I thought back to what George had told me and figured what would one time hurt? So I let her drive my car. Brianna only had her permit at the time but she said her mom always let her drive by herself. So now we are on our way to the mall and we are only about five miles from Brianna’s house and I decide to lean back and relax a little. Next thing I know I hear Brianna lighting up a cigarette. I look over at her and neither of her hands where on the wheel and she was looking down and not at the road. I yelled out, “What are you doing?!” She said don’t worry I do it all the time. I look up and see that we are headed straight for a ditch. I yelled out Brianna’s name and she looked up. She jerked the steering wheel hard and the whole car started swerving across the road. We ended up going across the road and into the ditch on the other side. The car almost flipped over but at the last second it bounced back. I was so scared I was shaking and crying, I couldn’t believe what just happened. My side of the car was up in the air and Brianna couldn’t get her door open, so we climbed down from my side to get out. Neither of us was hurt, Thank God! But my poor car! The front end was shoved in the ground. I called my mom; I was freaking out crying on the phone trying to explain to her what happened. All I was doing was mumbling really fast and she could barely understand me. I finally got it together and told her where we were at. She told me she would get George and bring a roll back truck to get my car. While waiting for them to show up Brianna was freaking out because she didn’t have a license. She asked me if I would say I was driving so she wouldn’t get in trouble. My jaw dropped when she asked me that! How dare she ask me to take the fall when she was the careless one and wrecked my car! I was about ready to give her a piece of my mind when a few cars starting stopping, one of them was a cop. Everyone rushed up and asked if we were alright and what had happened. Me and Brianna both had to give statements to the cop, she went first. After she was done the cop came to me and asked what had happened and why I swerved. I was so mad that Brianna Told the cop I was driving. I just sucked it up and told him there was an animal that ran in front of me. I was extremely nervous that he was going to give me a ticket, but he didn’t. I got very lucky. Soon after my mom and George showed up and pulled my car out. There was no major damage to the car except a dent on the front. I was so happy my car was okay! After taking the car to the shop later and getting it fully looked at we found out the shocks and struts on both sides in the front were broken. It was going to cost me about four hundred dollars to fix it. I had told my mom and George the full story about what happened and that Brianna was driving, they told me she should be the one to pay for the damages to my car. The next day when I told her she needed to pay for it seeing as it was her fault, she told me she didn’t have that kind of money and that she wasn’t going to give me anything for it. She didn’t even apologize to me. I was beyond mad at her, after everything I did for her and told the cop I was driving so she wouldn’t get in trouble for driving on a permit, she treats me like that! I just walked away without saying anything. George was right; she didn’t care about my car, about my best friend. She only cared about herself and what would get her from place to place. After going through the accident and everything with Brianna, I finally realized that George was right. My car was my best friend. After my accident I didn’t have my car for a couple weeks. I had to find a ride to get to work and school. And of course, all my friends that had gotten free rides many times all wanted money from me if I was to get a ride. It was horrible not having my own car there for me to use. I had taken for granted what I had. No one else cared that I didn’t have a car anymore. They just cared about themselves and their own vehicle. Ever since then I haven’t let a single person drive my car, I barley give anyone rides anymore unless it’s for family, and I always treat my car with respect.