Cars! They're such a big part of everyone's lives, giving us joy and pain all at once. Who could ever forget the feeling of buying their very first brand new car and driving it off the dealership lot? How proud you felt — that is until you made your first of many monthly payments for it. Then, the first big car accident you got into and how your heart just sank after seeing all the damage and how much it was going to cost to get it fixed.

Everyone tells me I'm a terrible driver; that I'm the reason they made defensive driving courses. What nerve! I prefer to describe this unique talent as being "exceptionally skilled" — after all, I'm still alive, aren't I?! I probably missed my calling as a cabbie in New York City. Now that's skill! Maybe I was a racecar driver in a former life because it's amazing that I can whip around the Shawangunk Mountains on two wheels like I do. It's such a shame that no one will drive with me anymore, even with the cost of gas these days. Can you believe even the carpool booted me out? Well, at least my children don't mind riding with me, but I suppose since they're in elementary school they don't have a choice. It's a good thing they make solid childhood car seats — makes them slightly less terrified. It's good for them — gives them something to talk about in therapy other than the fact that I give them donuts for dinner. I'm sure they'll willingly still sit in them even when they're 17-years-old without me even asking them to. If they're not being good I simply say, "Hey, let's go for a drive," and it shuts them right up.

My first car was a red Nova that I named the Red Barron and because I was young, and stupid, and didn't realize you actually needed to put oil in the thing, and so I accidentally killed it. Snoopy would have been pissed. The next one was a Chevy Impala, "Betsy." I abused poor Betsy all through my high school and college years. I drove her off a cliff one night to her grave — and almost mine. Home one summer from college, I drove old Betsy daily to my summer job scooping ice cream at Friendly's. All summer long my mother complained how I never brought her home any ice cream. So on my last day of work I blew my whole paycheck and filled the entire car with gallons of the stuff. Well, wouldn't you know it, but a deer ran out in front of me and I swerved and off the cliff I went, down a large embankment and landed, nose first, on the railroad tracks teetering in a perfect vertical position without falling over. Now that's something you don't see every day. Luckily I got out before the train hit it. Ice cream everywhere! I made it back up the hill in that horrible Friendly's blue-checkered tablecloth uniform they actually try to pass off as a "dress" dripping in mint chocolate chip. The next day, the tow truck dragged the crumbled mess the train left behind — all the windows were covered in melted fudgy rolls and chocolate almond fudge. Just thinking about it makes me tear up, and I don't even think I can say, "Jim Dandy" to this day. Poor Betsy — driven off a cliff, run over by a train, and ultimately humiliated with smeared ice cream. The pathetic thing was probably laughed at by all the other cars in the junk yard.

I swear like a sailor in the car, too. Another issue my children will be working out in therapy in their teens. The other day someone made a left turn right in front of me and I had to slam on the brakes and spontaneously yelled, "YOU @#$%*!!!"

So my daughter asks, "Mom, why did you call that man an @#$%*?"

"Well, honey, first off, that's one of those grown-up words that you can't say until you're 18 years old or Mommy will be dragged off to the hoo-skow. Then secondly I had the right of way because…" Just then, as I was asking myself why on earth I was explaining traffic laws to a first-grader, another car pulled out in front of me and I had to screech to a halt to avoid the collision.

I was still shaking and all was silent when my little backseat darling pipes up, "Look, Ma, there goes another @#$%*!!" I guess they're just going to have to take professional driving lessons when it comes time for them to learn. I read those bumper stickers that say, "I'm the proud parent of an honor student" and think that I should get a bumper sticker as well. It will read "Look out — Proud parent gonna run you down!"

I'm thinking about getting a new car for the spring and trying to decide what car to get. I need something big so that if I do get into an accident it's big enough to handle the impact. No little clown cars for me. I was thinking along the lines of a Hummer but maybe a tank would be best. No one would mess with a mama comin' round the mountain in a tank, that's for sure. Wonder if it comes in red or pink perhaps…Ya think?!