When I was younger I was one of those kids that had one of those doofy little play cars. You know the ones that have that yellow hood, the little red kid seat, the hole in the bottom for your little feet to stick out, the little car horn that made a really unhappy beeping noise and the wheels that never listened to you? That is the worst vehicle I have ever owned.
Alright, considering I am only 21, I’ve only ever “owned” one car in my life. I can, however, remember a few treasures that my family use to have over the years of my growth. The long brown car that had the drooping roof, the Blazer that is almost older than me at this point and my father still refuses to get rid of, the maroon Chevy truck that destroys your knee cap every time you hop into it because of the plow controls, and who could forget the other Chevy that my family owned that was HUGE but decided to stop producing air conditioning one day we were traveling and it was a record high. Never the less, out of all those cars, that doofy little put put car is truly the worst vehicle I have ever owned. Now don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun in that car, but it gave me more trouble than it was worth.
1. You Could Get Pushed Around
I suppose this isn’t the end of the world, but for a little kid with near no traction, sense of direction and a sister? It was disastrous. It was cute and wonderful when my mom did it, even when my dad was feeling nice he would push me around for a bit. It would provide a nice breeze and let me rest my legs and bruised knees from the hole through the bottom that I would have to shove my legs in just to move. My sister on the other hand, did not make it cute and wonderful anymore. She is 2 and a half years older than me, which isn’t a lot now, but when you’re 5 and your sister’s 7, there’s a difference in height and little kid strength.
She would push me around and it would start out innocent and fun, but it would soon turn very wrong. As she would gain speed, the rocks that our road was made of began to jump up at me, the wheels spitting them up at me. The wheels of the doofy car wouldn’t be able to handle the high speeds and they’d begin to lock up and trip over themselves. During this time my sister would give one last push and the entire put put car would fall over itself and tip over from the sheer force and speed.
No, no one was hurt, but being the whiny 5 year old that I was, I was scared and started crying. I don’t blame my sister, I blame the doofy little put put car that couldn’t keep up.
2. Fake Gas Area
I’m not sure if every little doofy put put car had this, but mine had a little fake gas tank on the side of the car. Obviously the car ran without anything being put in that little tank, but it was a little place that I could put things. Being my 5 year old self, that was just too tempting to pass up. I loved little hiding places. So for some reason, don’t ask I was 5, I use to like to put things like bread and sammiches in there for “safe keeping”. This means I could run around in the car, stop for a fill up, eat part of my sammich and then be on my way. This does not seem entirely healthy now that I am older, but I’m still alive more or less. Anyways, I think you can see where this is going.
One day I completely forgot my delicious egg salad sammich was hiding in the gas tank and it was rather warm out. I got distracted, no surprise, and ran off to do something with my awesome mom. I didn’t drive the little doofy put puf car for another day or two. It had rained the next day and then the following day I had a dentist appointment and mom took me out to eat after wards (she always did since they were so traumatizing for me, and still are). So the car was sitting out in the toasty sun and gooey rain for over 24 hours, and the egg salad sammich began to attract all sorts of interesting creatures. Unfortunately, my dad had found the odd smelling mushy thing before I had a chance to remember it was there and to do something creative to get rid of it.
I was banned from the doofy put put car for about a week and promised never to put anything in the fake gas tank again. From then on, I only put rocks in there. Well, and your occasional pretzel.
3. The Lack of Traction / Direction
I am going to point out at this point that the lack of traction and sense of direction was not my fault, but in fact, the cars fault. The first thing to blame for the traction issue was the fact that the wheels were made out of hard plastic and not rubber. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most cars have rubber wheels which help with the whole road gripping thing. When you have plastic wheels, nothing grips to them except for freshly cut grass and grasshoppers that are more than dead. Due to this fact alone, you could not “drive” around on any surface without slipping, sliding and skidding out all at the same time. This was a problem when you’re trying to go straight or when you’re trying to avoid giant pot holes or rocks the size of mountains. Believe me, it was a huge problem. The second thing to blame for the traction issue was of course, me, the impatient little 5 year old that just wanted to go fast and make jumps off the giant rocks and to stick her feet in the giant pot holes through the car bottom. I still don’t get why this was so exciting to me.
The other part of the lack of traction was also due to the fact that the entire vehicle lacked direction as well. The little steering wheel with the dead beat horn that hated it’s existence was hooked up to these thin metal rods that attached to each of the wheels as well as another rod that went down the middle of the car so you can turn and the wheels would turn as well, kind of like a real car except it didn’t work as well. Unfortunately, the little steering wheel did not agree with these rods sometimes and for some reason they would get tangled and then the entire doofy put put car would just tip over.
I think all of this also had to do with the fact that I was a reckless driver as a 5 year old. I gave the little doofy put put car more than one reason to want to end it’s little plastic existence.
4. The Spiders
I have no problem with spiders as a whole. I do have a problem with them if they are crawling on me. My sister would always love to put little creepy things on me and laugh as I ran away screaming. I generally am alright with bugs and I think they’re really beautiful creatures, so long as they’re not actually ON me. So, as you can see, it was a huge problem when these little creatures decided to build their cute little nests and webs in the doofy little put put car over night and then hide out during the day so I couldn’t see them riding along with me. There was more than one occasion where I flipped out and shot myself through where the windshield was suppose to be in order to get away.
Due to this fear of mine, before each joy ride, I would have to carefully inspect the car. With my trusty spider stick I would approach the car slowly so I would not scare away the little things and then twirl their webs around the stick and shoo them out of the car. I would try not to squish them, but sometimes there were no survivors.
5. The Silly Little Door
As I grew older and got larger, the doofy little put put car began to shrink. The silly little door that you opened in order to get into the drivers seat, or rather, the only seat in the car (it did not enjoy additional passengers), shrank even more. I suppose this door was smaller than the rest of the car, but I’m not entirely sure that makes a whole lot of sense. No matter how small that little door became or how small the entire vehicle became, I still wanted to fit into it. So, I did. I shoved my little body into this car, my legs sticking out where the windshield was suppose to be and scrunched down so that my head wouldn’t hit the ceiling. I then had my sister push me around like this, although due to the lack of traction, direction, and the spiders, this always ended up in injury.
My parents gave away the doofy little put put car soon after they realized that I was too unintelligent to understand that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.
Alas, I had such great memories of that car. Most of them included me falling down inside the vehicle and trying to figure out how to get myself back upright. There were those few times where the car was having a decent day and decided to actually work instead of trip on itself, but those days were few. Unfortunately, it is still dubbed the worst vehicle I have ever owned.
