Hey, that's my car!

Yesterday my girlfriend and I went shopping. First she had to go get a new driver's license. At the first place we went, a strip mall in a land of strip malls and condo developments, the DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) office was closed. Closed as in no longer there, as in moved somewhere else. We got back in the car and drove to a different, smaller, probably cheaper for the State to rent, strip mall space. My girlfriend was about to park one place and I saw spaces closer to where she was going and pointed to those. (God forbid any loved one of mine should have to walk more than necessary at the strip mall.) She pulled in to a spot next to a familiar looking car. I said, "That's my car!"

And I do believe it was my car. My old car that is. My old granny car. (Upon seeing what I was driving a friend once asked "Is that your Grandmom's car?", to which I had to reply, yes. He had a friend who had the same car. It had belonged to the person's Grandmom.) A car which had a strange provenance. My maternal Grandfather's brother passed away in late '94. He was a widower and lived in Carmel California. He had a home aide living with him at the time. This 'aide' was rotten. He ended up in jail for using my Great Uncle's credit card. Great Uncle Alton's house was broken into after he died. His Cutlass Cierra was stolen after he died. The police recovered the stolen vehicle by following the trail of associates of the rotten 'aide'.

I went to Carmel in early '05 to housesit while my Mom and Grandad executed the estate from back in N.C. It was a strange gig, hanging out in a dead man's house, a man whom I had met only three or four times if that, going through all his belongings, preparing his house for sale, answering his phone and informing charities he had contributed to that he should be removed from their lists, etc. I also drove around in his previously stolen vehicle. I was slated to drive the car back to N.C., but those plans changed. The car did make it back to N.C. though, and it became a second car for my grandparents. I ended up living with my grandparents a few months later. I ended up driving that car on a daily basis.

Three years later, after both my grandparents had passed away, the car became mine. Three or four years later I sold the car for a few hundred dollars to a neighbor. That neighbor traded the car in and got a new car. I last saw the car probably three or four years ago. Then my girlfriend and I pulled into that parking spot yesterday, in a place I had never been before, and lo and behold there was my old car, my grandparent's old car, my great Uncle's old car, sitting next to us, with two people inside eating their breakfast. I was drinking my Biscuitville coffee from breakfast. I knew the car was my old car because it had the smear of yellow paint on its back passenger side bumper where I had backed up on a yellow parking post years ago. I had tried to get the paint off and it was like it had been embedded in the bumper.

So I sat next to that old car, thinking about what the odds were that we pulled up and parked right next to it in that parking lot. The people were waiting for someone in the DMV office. When their person came out they started the car and it sounded like crap. Just like it had when I sold it. As they drove off I wondered if I would ever see the car again.