WRITING PROMPT

It’s Back to Me and My VW, Baby

Flint & Steel Full Circle Writing Challenge

“You win the Cleanest Car Award,” stammered my coworker. “We all decided. After all, you’re the only one without Cheerios littering the floor or yogurt stains on seat backs.”

I winked at my spotless Jetta. As my coworker slid from my 2-month-old vehicle, I caressed the velvet-y seats.

Of course, I didn’t have sticky seatbelts or Goldfish sticking their neon orange heads from the corner of the console. This was pre-kids. Heck, I had only been on one date with the man who would, in less than a year, become my husband.

I’m fairly certain that I pulled over about two minutes after I dropped off him and his golf clubs. Extracted a barrel of wet wipes. And scrubbed down the divot-dusted trunk.

“Oh my clean, clean car,” I whispered towards the shiny dash, in the creepiest of creepy voices. “I love you.”

This was my second car. But it was the first one that didn’t require my Dad to co-sign.

“A full-time teaching gig. Check.” I yelled, blaring Destiny Child’s Independent Women Part I. “A shiny, brand new diesel. Check!”

Jiggling around the now-dijon-colored kitchen, I sniffed recent hints of Benjamin Moore. I surveyed my home. My home. Where I lived all by myself. And forked over mortgage payments — on my own.

“House. Check!”

Fast forward 19 years. Two teens tower over me. Inhaling any groceries that enter the property.

A smile bites into my cheeks — one that only a newly-single divorcee-wannabe could muster.

The sole hint of fresh paint is the toxic fumes emanating from my daughter’s obsessive nail polish collection.

My husband’s golf clubs remain nestled on a very high shelf in our shed. I have packed up my spouse and his Alzheimer’s — and moved them elsewhere. Lawyer messages periodically shout at me from my phone’s inbox. I cross my fingers that soon it will be solely my home and my mortgage payments.

“Why don’t you go for what you really want?” urged a friend. As I considered which new vehicle would replace the minivan that barely had enough hutzpah to chug me back and forth to work.

I allowed myself to visualize my rump snuggled into the teeniest of the VW SUVs. The fantasy was victorious.

“This is a damn sweet vehicle, “ I moaned, crawling into what was now My Volkswagen. Whispering to no one but myself. “Even if I went a little deeper into debt than I’d planned.”

“I didn’t need his signature, his money, or his opinion,” I shrug. “I got this baby all on my own!”

A friend and I are inhaling nutmeg-dotted cappuccino from the cafe after which I have christened my car. Euphoria. We stare at my new, flat grey Taos. She stares. I drool.

This is the first vehicle in almost 20 years that I chose, organized, and signed for — without a man.

“It’s like you’ve come Full Circle,” she says, her palm settling for a moment on my forearm.

Full Circle.

At work, I’d probably score the Cleanest Car Award. Euphoria is free of Cheerios and Goldfish. And, for now, teenage body odor.

But all I can think about is my round-trip journey to independence. It’s back to me and My Volkswagen, Baby.

Full Circle. Check.

©Jennifer J. McDougall 2022