Today my parents sold Rhonda, my 1997 cherry red Honda Accord coupe. She wasn’t my first car – that title is claimed by a teal-green 1995 Saturn which only lasted a couple of years – but she was my first real car. Some memories from the ten years Rhonda and I have been on the road:
- She was actually my mother’s car first. We bought her and the Saturn together, the Saturn for me and the Honda for mom. My mom is cool, and she was even cooler in such an ace car.
- I named her Rhonda sometime shortly after I inherited her, in the summer of 1999, with help from Erin. Later, when Erin got a Jetta, she named it Greta.
- While she was my mom’s, I was allowed to take her for a spin to Starbuck’s once, to hang out with Matt. Leaving the garage, I scraped her right flank along the garage door frame and spent an agonized hour at Starbuck’s trying to figure out how to tell my mother.
- She’s had the garage ceiling of our townhouse in Houston crash down on her, leaving her trunk forever difficult to open.
- She drove from Texas to New York in the summer of 1999, and from New York back to Texas in the summer of 2000, and then up to Rhode Island in 2001.
- She’s been broken into once, in a CVS parking lot in Providence, with the CD player I got for Christmas 1997 stolen out of her in my favorite messenger bag.
- She’s gotten in three different bumper fenders – the best one being when I backed up into the neighbors’ minivan on Christmas Eve.
- We hydroplaned off the highway together in Texas, July 1999. I was going 80-something in the driving rain with very bald tires (hello, teenagers are dumb!) and we hit a wet patch and spun circles into the 50-foot grass median, screaming all the way. I remember Sheryl Crow was playing as we did about 3 full revolutions before coming to a muddy stop in the middle of the field. I threw up right after opening the car door. I’ve always been very careful with her tires since then.
- We’ve gotten through three winters together up at Sarah Lawrence, especially in Tuckahoe where we were constantly digging her and her twin sister – Beth’s green Civic – out of the snow on a hill. Never once did she skid on the ice.
- I like to think she’s a V6 who’s convinced she’s a V8. She certainly drives like one.
- When Stuart and I met, I’d been describing Rhonda as my zippy little red Honda. When he saw her, he said, “that’s a LITTLE car?”
- We took Rhonda on our honeymoon to Bar Harbour.
- I drove in New York City for the first time in Rhonda. I was nervous about it, but a friend told me to “roll down the windows, turn up the music, and drive by instinct.” Very good advice that Rhonda and I have always dutifully followed.
- Once, on my solo drive from NYC to Texas, I stopped in Newnan, Georgia, for the night. All my worldly college possessions were in the car, so, you know, my REM records and my deep journals and some flannel shirts. I got my overnight bag from the passenger side and then went into my motel room. The next morning, I was rummaging around in my purse for the keys as I approached Rhonda and saw them. In the door. To this day it’s amazing that someone didn’t just help themselves to the big gift-wrapped car in the parking lot.
- In the summer of 2000, I was a mother’s helper on Fisher’s Island and the family I was working for had two Mercedes. Both girls thought Rhonda was a sports car and asked their mother repeatedly why she didn’t have a sports car as cool as Rhonda.
I know it’s silly, maybe, to be this attached to a car. But I always felt like Rhonda was really the perfect car for me. She was tough and stylish and fast. She hugged the road like a dream – everyone that drove her was amazed at what a smooth ride she was. When I didn’t really have a home in college, because my parents were overseas, Rhonda felt like a little den of permanence, like no matter where I lived, she’d always be parked outside. Which is probably why her back seat was always littered with fifteen books, four sweaters, a Starbucks cup, and five water bottles.
I escaped with her, went on adventures with her, drove countless friends around for countless awesome hours. We drove through towns and cities with all kinds of music talking to all kinds of people but she was always mine.
Since I moved to New York City, she’s mostly been in retirement in my parents’ garage, but she was always my car when I went home. This summer, she stayed in Brooklyn with us for a few months and even though her air-conditioning was broken, and every time I got in the car it felt like my face was melting off, I was always happy to get behind the wheel, turn the music up, roll down the windows, and give a little pat to the dashboard, and hum a little Help Me, Rhonda at her.
She was my car for nearly ten years and I loved her. Hope her new owners know what a gem she is.

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