I Hate My Ex-Mother-in-Law’s Car

I hate my car. I never lock it, in the hopes it will be stolen. I’m disappointed daily when I open the door to the garage. It’s still there, every morning, my car that is the same shape and color of a cement block and handles about as well. A 1995 Volvo station wagon.

My car is so lacking in charm and style it must have been designed by Swedish parliamentarians. It’s a Soviet apartment building kind of car. A fallen refrigerator on alloy wheels. Its grayish color is exactly the shade of the silverfish that slide in the corners of my bathroom.

The reason I hate my car is simple—it used to belong to my ex-mother-in-law, a woman who, as far as I know, has never had a silverfish in her bathroom. Now that I’ve divorced her son I no longer have to interact with my ex-mother-in-law, but I’m stuck with her leaden, loaf-shaped Volvo. Just saying “Volvo” somehow makes me feel embarrassed. It would be one thing if it was one of those beat up old hippie Volvo wagons plastered with peacenik bumper stickers. But if that were the case, I might still be married.

I’m faced with a dilemma, because the car does have one outstanding feature—it’s paid for. I’d be a fool to get rid of such a nice car. But in America, your car is a statement of who you are, a reflection of your personality and lifestyle. Instead, this car is a symbol of everything I’ve rejected in my life in the past year, and I have to drive it around in public every day. My car humiliates me. I call it the Flying Fridge.

I decided to trade it in and get it out of my life for good. The kind salesman explains to me how much they are willing to give me for it, and then mentions that the Flying Fridge will be sent to the auto auction. I feel a surge of glee blast through me as he says the words “auto auction.” My mind wanders to an image of my ex-mother-in-law’s car on the auction block, sold to a wheezing man in a cheap suit. He takes it back to his used car lot on the edge of Skanksville and graffiti’s the front windshield with an enticing offer in neon paint. Then he parks the Flying Fridge in the front of his lot where the tractor trailers kick up dust from the littered roadway, caking the Volvo’s tiny headlight windshield wipers with grit, the whistling wind of traffic flapping the multicolored plastic flags overhead, the car’s Pirelli tires sunk in a ditch of oozing winter mud. Imagining this makes me feel a kind of lightness, a sense of relief that I haven’t felt since the day my divorce became final.

I buy a 2003 Pontiac Vibe in a color called “salsa.” It’s a deep tomato red, the color of poppies and children’s wagons and Christmas ornaments. Its new car smell makes exciting things possible every time I open the door. It has a moon roof, a CD player, a hatchback, a roof rack. It has an adorable, plump shape. It is the first car I have ever bought myself and I am in love with it. I happily write a check for my car payment every month. My daughter names it “Go-Girl.”

Each day when I open the door to the garage, I smile. There sits Go-Girl, her red paint shining, the hula girl affixed to her dashboard poised to dance at every turn. Now when I drive my car, it reflects the true image of who I am and who I want to be—vibrant, sporty, salsa red. The Flying Fridge has gone to auction, the road ahead is open wide. And the past, which used to surround me on all sides, is barely visible now through my rearview mirror.