Goodbye Landcruiser

After eleven years, I sold my cassette deck-bragging 1998 Toyota Landcruiser. It is bittersweet. And now I will say Goodbye Landcruiser.
goodbye landcruiser
  • We brought my first daughter, Rowan, home from St. John’s hospital in Tulsa, OK in that car. It made perfect sense at the time since we were increasing our family from two to three that we would need a gynormous gas-guzzling 8 passenger vehicle immediately. I was hormonal. I don’t know what my then-husband’s excuse was.
  • I was driving that car in backwards-ass Missouri with my sister and six-week old daughter when we learned that the twin towers had fallen on 9/11. My sister and I were stranded looking for gasoline because all the panicky ranchers rushed the gas stations to fill up their pick-ups as soon as the news broke.
  • I’ve had several flat tires in that car. Most notably, the one I decided I could change myself. Hello. I have Triple A, but no one can tell me girls can’t fix flat tires. After the car fell off the jack slightly while my head was under the carriage, I realized that there was no way in hell that if I actually managed to get the freakin’ tire on the SUV that I would ever drive a car whose tire I had allegedly attached. I may be stubborn and a feminist, but I don’t have a death wish.
  • We took many road trips and camping trips in that car: Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri. Just to name a few.
  • I wonder how many speeding tickets I got in that car? I had a real lead foot when I started listening to my iPod while driving. I would zone out to the music and apparently only swirling police lights could bring me back to reality. I do some of my best thinking in cars. Especially ones going fifteen miles over the speed limit, it seems.
  • A big fat fucking tree limb from a 70 year old hackberry tree in my yard fell on top of the car necessitating two weeks of gentle repairs.
  • Thieving maggots stole my car from my drive-way in the dead of night several years ago and smashed my beloved green car into another car before slamming it into a parked tree. They liked potato chips and threw out my most awesome cow-plaid child seats. The Landcruiser was eventually restored to its former glory.
goodbye landcruiser
  • We were sitting in the Landcruiser when we decided what names to give the twins.
  • I sold my car to a nice dealer in Asheville, NC. After his wife drives the car, he has a guy he sells older model SUV’s to who offloads the vehicles to China, Russia, Nigeria and Libya. The buyer promised me that my Landcruiser will go to a Nigerian War Lord when the time is right. I can think of no more fitting end to my car than for the sunroof to have an AK-47 mounted to it driving around the desert in Africa.

Goodbye, Old Friend. It’s been a trip.

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