An Ode to Betty

We fell in love in that car. Do you remember?

The first memory I have of Betty is leaving the final late night class before the holiday break and running out after you as you walked to her. I had to give you my phone number in hopes that you would call…even though you never did.

But then she began parking next to my car every day at school.

She carried us on our first outing together – back when you still had a girlfriend. We drove all around downtown looking for some protest to join, trying to find a mixed up street name we thought was “Imperialism”. We actually read a real-life map, but never found the protest. Instead we brought lunch to your girlfriend at work where all you two did was sit and argue while looking out at California’s bay. We left her and wandered into the Wyland shop to examine the paintings, but really examine each other’s thoughts. And we sat in Betty and talked for hours, never wanting it to end.

We took hundreds of naps in her, especially when we were exhausted from staying up until dawn doing school projects. We zipped around sharp turns and raced down long hills toward homes that were all separate before we chose to live together. There was even that time you sped over a hill and whipped to the right causing me to fly across the backseat.

Betty saw the end of your relationship and the beginning of ours.

She kept us safe, hidden behind a Chili’s one night as we both sat in the same seat, our faces warm against each other. And that time you drove us to a tall hill to look out over the city lights and I leaned over, grabbing the emergency break…which really wasn’t the emergency break…

We were even sitting in her when I asked the question: “What are we? This relationship? We’re more than friends, but not together.” And we were still sitting in her when we decided we were a couple. Two peas in a Sentra pod.

She moved us into the same apartment together and listened to us talk about our roommates.

She drove us out to our “Narnia”, a little dirt road that led from the busy city to a magical forest of trickling water, tiny frogs, and cascading grapevine.

She’s been pulled over for speeding to Old Town for a late night ghost excursion where you were too nervous and blubbery to form sentences for the officer and I had to do the talking. I’m still convinced that after explaining the situation, asking the officer how he was doing while waiting for your ID, and reminding myself aloud to be quiet that I saw a smirk on his face and that’s why we never got a ticket.

She drove us to graduation, and she left you stranded there - after I accidentally took the keys with me.

She’s seen us up to Los Angeles and even to Northern California a few times for conventions and family. And out to Las Vegas for our personal vacation full of Cirque du Soleil, Body Exhibits, and Asian bartenders telling us “oh! You get fucked up!?” after ordering two monster Sunsets.

Eventually she even moved us into a rental of our own. Squeezing in the desks and TVs we were certain wouldn’t fit, but Betty always stretched. She even carried our new kittens and puppies home from the shelter and eventually would carry them to all their vet appointments and excursions to lakes and beaches and dog parks. And she rolled her eyes every time the dog vomited in the back seat – and the other climbed into the window to get away from it.

She listened to us talk about the mass layoffs from our first job. And your second. Third. Fourth. And fifth. She’s made the commute with you from San Diego to Los Angeles. And helped us move there. She drove you to your interviews and listened to us cry about breaking our lease when that job didn’t hold.

And so with a deep breath, she drove my mother and me, with our dogs in the back and kitty litter at the ready in the trunk, across the country following a monster U-Haul to your new job in Louisiana.

She carried our bikes to our many muddy trails, parks, and levee rides. She drove us three hours to and from the Gulf of Mexico. Then she drove us back when we realized we’d accidentally taken home a hermit crab. She drove us to and from our haunt at Happy’s – whether we were too drunk or not. She always found her way home. And she was grateful to be moved into the carport the night of the hurricane, where an enormous branch fell onto the driveway and went flying toward our house where she usually parked.

Then she drove us to New Orleans where a penguin waited at the Aquarium with a ring around its neck and you asked me to marry you.

She listened to us cry about the Louisiana mass layoff too. And she listened to us cry when your next job would take us to the East Coast. She waited patiently for a month in the driveway for your return. Then she carried me with the dogs and plants and kitty litter, following another monster U-Haul, up the coast to our New Jersey rental.

She’s had her battle wounds too, hasn’t she? The dent in the hood where the bicyclist ran right into her while you stopped at a light. The white moustache my mom gave her when the car jerked forward into an iron bar. The time you pegged her oil pan going over a boulder hidden in the snow before we even knew each other.

And now, at this moment, she sits outside, covered in six inches of snow from a storm the night before, her tire flat and her bumper broken from your icy slide into a ditch. But she got you home safe.

Every time she gets us home safe. Because she’s Betty.

And we continue to love her. Because she’s family.