Life of Bry

Originally Published: October 18, 2019

In an effort to keep me writing consistently, I wanted to expand what I want this blog to be. Initially, this was my place to post editorial-style articles. The posts would be the same caliber as what I would submit for my college newspaper or my journalism courses. 

However, I have since realized just how much time, effort and mental power those articles actually take to complete. Since I work a full-time job, it just isn’t possible to steadily put out well-researched and written opinion pieces, which leads me to the start of the ThoughtSpot. 

I need to keep writing, and sometimes it’s easier for me to take a prompt and run with it. Luckily for me, there are millions of creative and interesting writing prompts on the Internet. Whether it’s once a week or once a month, I really want to push myself to take one of these prompts and post to this blog. 

Here we go …

Thought Spot Prompt No. 1

Talk about your first car. Did you name it? What were its quirks? 

The Cav Daddy was the perfect car for a broke college student. 

He was a 2003 Chevy Cavalier. His white paint was chipped across the hood, there was a rusted out hole in the back bumper and the passenger-side window went down but not back up, while the driver-side window wouldn’t go down at all. 

The biggest flaw was that if you forgot to slap the door handle down before climbing in the passenger seat, the door would fly open while you were driving. It gave me and my friends quite a few heart attacks over the years.

Yes, the Cavalier had so many dents and dings, but I loved it with my whole heart.

It was a gift from my dad when I was in college in Pittsburgh. We found the Cavalier on Facebook in the next town over. The guy who previously owned the car before we bought it actually drove it to and from Pittsburgh nearly everyday for work. 

It honestly felt like fate. 

The Cav Daddy and I were partners in crime. We took on the ‘Burgh together. We hunted for parking spots in Locust Garage on Duquesne’s campus after morning’s covering Pittsburgh Penguins practices, and we ventured to the suburbs to hike through the Pennsylvania hills on the weekend. 

With a gas tank that only took $20 to fill every three weeks, it felt like the Cav Daddy and I could take on the world. 

But it wasn’t all great. The muffler fell off half way between home and college. Then, the battery died while I was out Christmas shopping. Once, a frat boy hit the Cavalier with the door of his Range Rover, and I was so sleep deprived that I caused a scene in the parking garage. 

Another time I locked the keys in it when stopping to buy my mom flowers on my way home from college. I sat on the ground, back against the Cavalier, having a panic attack in a Walmart parking lot while I waited for my dad to arrive with the spare key. It was truly the lowest of lows.

Given everything we’ve been through together, the Cav Daddy was my safe haven.

I spent hours upon hours screaming to the radio as I sat in Pittsburgh traffic attempting to make the journey home for the holidays. I packed him up and moved into my first apartment in the city, then I did it again to move home after graduation. I drove him to my awful and humbling job at a grocery store while I searched for a career in my field. 

Then, I had a hard decision to make. I started looking for a more reliable car, just in case I got a job out of state. The Cav Daddy was resilient, but it was unrealistic to think it would be able to last a long trip. 

Oil dripped onto the driveway slowly, only making the inevitable reality. It was time to sell the Cav Daddy and buy a big girl car.

I bought a 2010 Honda CR-V. She was a shiny silver, with some high-class amenities like a sunroof and an aux port. All the windows went down and up, no oil leaked and the muffler wasn’t attached by a soldered metal coat hanger.

My brother actually fixed the Cavalier up to make it a little prettier to sell. He solved the oil leak, filled in the back bumper hole and had the Cav Daddy purring. He genuinely gave this car the TLC it deserved, and it wasn’t too long before a man bought the Cav Daddy for a whopping $1,000 to use as his work car. 

It was bittersweet to say goodbye to my first car. This sounds super corny, but I believe that after so long together, the Cav Daddy was a part of me and my personality. It hurt to let him go, because it meant saying goodbye to a major part of my life. My college years were behind me, and I had to become a real adult adult — or at least a fake adult with a decent ride.

While I also love my new CR-V — which I have since named Karen for its soccer mom capabilities, I still find myself missing the Cav Daddy. I miss it the most when I spend a cool $30 to fill my tank every week. 

Also, the new owner actually wrecked the Cavalier shortly after buying it, but my brother patched him back up and got it up and running like new. 

The Cav Daddy is a true legend.