Back eleven years ago.. (holy crap! has it been that long?) Ben and I owned a gold, Saturn SL. It was our first brand-new car purchase (married or otherwise) and at the time it was the shanizzle-fa-fizzle. It wasn't too expensive even for that time period. We paid $11,500 WITH our upgrades.

Wanna hear what we upgraded? We added the a/c (yeah, this was NOT standard at the time) to the tune of $900+ and a passenger side mirror for $35. Yeah. This was not a standard feature either. Go figure.

It was a great little car. It was comfy and ran so well. Back then, we could fill up the 10 gallon tank for under $12! (This is when gas was $.95 for regular and $1.15 for premium)

doesn't that just make you cringe?

Anyway, we loved our little Saturn and we even nicknamed her "Goldie". (Ironically, that was one of my nicknames in boot camp.) Not only was gas less expensive then, but this car got EXCELLENT gas mileage. We'd get like 30+ miles in the city and 35-38 miles on the highway. That's just damn near unheard of these days unless you have one of those funny looking Smart Cars.

Back in 1997 we lived in Kingsland, GA. Ben was stationed at Mayport but we found an inexpensive townhouse in Kingsland. (1200 sq. ft. for $500/mo) Since it was an hour's drive and Ben's oldest brother was also stationed in Mayport on the same ship, they decided to carpool. Ernie and Teresa had 2 cars and we had only one.

Ben had to be at work at 6am so we would leave the house at 4:30am and I would drive him to the meeting place half an hour away (Hardee's---for those of you who don't know it's a fast food chain in the south). Ernie would pick him up from there and they'd drive to the base together. In the afternoon, I'd wait for Ben at Hardee's where Ernie would drop him off.

On the afternoon of April 1st, 1997 I was headed to Hardee's to pick up Ben. I left at my usual time. It was a little cool that day and I had on jeans and a flannel shirt. However, it wasn't too cool to bring along a glass of homemade sweet iced tea with me to sip on during the drive. About 2 miles away on HWY 17 (two lane highway) I remember looking down to change the radio station, looking back up and there was an Isuzu Rodeo right smack in front of me. It wasn't there just a second ago! Next thing I knew, I was turning the wheel to the right---sharply-- felt impact.

I came back to consciousness a few seconds later with the airbag deployed. I got out and literally within 2 minutes, there was a fleet of emergency vehicles swarming the area. There were 4 police cars, 3 fire trucks and 2 ambulances.

The paramedics took me into the back of one of the ambulances immediately to check me out. After they determined that I was okay, they asked me if I needed to call anyone and let them know that I had just been in an accident. Immediately I told them that I needed to call my sister-in-law, Teresa so that she could call her husband on the ship and instruct him to bring Ben all the way home.

(Remember, this was before cell phones were commonplace.)

I called her and was so frantic that she had to tell me to calm down. I said, "Teresa, I've been in a car accident and I can't drive my car to pick up Ben. Can you call the ship and tell Ernie to bring him all the way to our house, please?"

Teresa replied, "C'mon Michele. I know you weren't in a car accident."

Me: "No, I'm not kidding. I'm in the back of an ambulance right now."

Teresa replies sarcastically: "Okay. Ha, ha. Ya got me. April Fool's."

Me, very sternly: "No, I'm serious. I'm not kidding around."

She still didn't believe me. "Okay, if you're in the back of an abulance then let me talk to the paramedics." I handed the phone back to the guy and he told him exactly what I was trying to convey to her all along. She FINALLY believed me after that.

A very nice police officer escorted me back to my house while the tow truck took Goldie away. Turns out that there was $8500 worth of damage. I hit the Rodeo at 55mph and was told later that in those instances, collisions are actully double the speed upon impact. Scary stuff, I know! Needless to say, it was also determined that the Rodeo came out with only his bumper pulled "down" but the cop told me that he was receiving the citation. Apparently, he pulled out from the woods on the right side of the road and cut me off. Then he stopped suddenly to make a left hand turn without his blinker (indicator) on at all.

My ONLY injuries were burns from the airbag deploying (on my hands along where the thumb connects to the hand/wrist) and a very sore back for 3 days. In fact, Ben had to help dress me because I had difficulty moving around.

This wouldn't be the only accident that poor little car would endure. She went through 4 more however, none even half as serious as this one described here.

Here is proof why Saturns have the reputation that they do for being safe (and reliable) cars. She gave us 7 more years and well over 250,000 miles before we gave her to Ben's brother.

Definitely an April Fool's that I will never forget!

Until next time...peace, love & HEALTH!!!