The White Volvo

We lived in Clarksville, VA when both Dennis and I got our licenses. At this pointin time my whole family drove Volvos. Sarah Margaret and Mom both had station wagons and Dennis got a 1989 White Volvo 240. We were a little disappointed in the looks of the car until we realized it had blue cloth interior...then we were even more disappointed. Another thing about "the white car" as we called it, was that is was stick shift. So Dennis and I both had to learn how to drive manual. I spent a lot of time in that car even when it was Dennis's and not mine, which it later became. The car also had some special little quirks. First of all, the Break Failure light was always on. This is not a good thing for a car. How was I supposed to know if my breaks were actually failing or is it was just an electrical glitch? Second, the air condition didn't work. Whenever I would baby sit Scooter in the summer his family would always comment on how warm he felt when he got out of my car. I always had to apologize for my oven of a car. Third, after Dennis hit a ginormous dog the front bumper would never stay in place. Some times I would be driving down the road and see sparks coming up from the front driver side. I would just pull over and click the bumper back into place and hope that it would stay this time. it never would though. Fourth, the odometer was stuck on 246,000before we even had it so there is no telling how many miles were actually on it.

Dennis had a knack for getting pulled over and talking himself out of a ticket. He seriously got pulled over a lot in our small town. The school cop and the town cops were on the look out for the white car. It was also just my luck that the other 1989 white Volvo 240 in town was owned by a drunkard who the cops were also on the look out for. Needless to say, I had to obey all traffic laws at all times because people were watching for my car. Throughout its life with the Craft family the white car had quite a few mishaps.
-Dennis once a hit a dog the size of a cow with it.
-Dennis tried to race someone "uptown", Clarksvillians know where that is, and shared some paint with the other car. There was a nice reddish scrape on it after that.
-One night Dennis, Whalen, and I were on our way to Camp Concord and we missed the turn in the road and came inches from smashing into a great big grave stone.
-We got followed by the school cop to someone's house after school because we had way to many people piled in the back seat and we had a flat tire which made the car swerve. The cop said Dennis was driving wreckless. Don't worry though, he talked himself out of a ticket.
-I ran over a poodle. The little guy didn't die though, thank goodness.
-Just when we were beginning to think this car would not die I proved us all wrong. One fateful night I was driving home from church and I was on Cow Road when a mama deer and her two babies popped out of the woods. The mama ran right into my car. The deer died and so did the beloved white car.

We were not sad.

Cybiko

In 2002 a movie came out with Frankie Muniz and Amanda Bynes called "Big Fat Liar". I honestly do not remember much about the plot, all I remember is that they had these cool gadgets called Cybikos that they would use to communicate with each other. It was like text messaging before there was text messaging. All I knew was that I had to have one. I pictured myself sitting in my room, or on the bus, or at school chatting with all my friends all the time. It was going to be magical. So on our next trip to Best Buy I went to check them out. Cybikos came in so many bright cool colors. Of course I wanted a yellow one, I always wanted yellow things. I also learned that not only did it let you communicate with your friends, but you could also download like a million games online onto your Cybiko and even raise a little Cybee. Which was basically a giga pet, just a little more involved and high tech. I really needed one of these Cybikos.
That December for my birthday all I asked for was a Cybiko. I thought it would change my life. I thought about it all day on my birthday until finally it was time to open presents. I ripped into the first box and screeched with delight at the beautiful new yellow Cybiko in my hands. It was finally mine. Then things took a turn for the worse.
Upon further inspection I learned that you actually had to be within a 2 mile radius of the person you wanted to communicate with. I was a little disappointed with this news, but I figured that would be fine because Corie and Sally were my neighbors. I quickly realized that even though they were closer than 2 miles, they did not have a Cybiko. I was so sure that after they saw mine they would get one for Christmas which was just a few weeks away. I could definitely wait that long. Christmas came and went and I was still the only person I knew with a Cybiko. Actually I was the only person I knew with two Cybikos. My original yellow one would not download the games or the little Cybee that I wanted so badly so Dad got me a new purple one.
I spent hours at the computer trying to get my data loaded and games working on the Cybiko. It never worked. By February I was pretty disgusted with my useless toy. Of course in February they came out with the Cybiko Extreme and Dad bought me one. He felt bad that I had wanted this gadget so badly and it didn't work, so he kept trying to fix it.
Now I had three Cybikos that basically only told me the time and had a calendar on them. None of them would communicate with anyone and none of them would play games.
I blame Amanda Bynes and Frankie Muniz for leading me to believe that this would be the coolest toy ever. They were very wrong. Dennis and Sarah Margaret made fun of me a lot for that one. Cybikos were the biggest disappointment of the new millennium for me. They did look really cool though.