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It has been many years since my first car, Bullet, sputtered to a stop by the side of the roadand died. I'm sure that to most, Bullet was nothing more than metal, fabric, paint, rubber and various fluids, but somewhere between the assembly line and my ownership of him, he gained not only a personality, but a wicked sense of humor.

I realize that Bullet isn't a very warm and welcoming name. In fact, it may have been because of this name that he sought revenge on me. But somehow, the name fit. Bullet was a 1976 Plymouth Arrow. By the time he came to me, he had over 100,000 miles and 8 years under his hood.

Two weeks after graduating from high school, I left for a six-week trip abroad, leaving Bullet parked out behind our old gray barn. We had a young bull who decided to ram the car repeatedly with his new horns. No one realized what was happening until I got home. My car looked like it had been shot in about fifteen places with a rifle. It didn't take too much rain and humidity to cause those holes to begin to rust. Bullet looked like he'd been used for target practice.

Bullet was ugly, but like bulldogs, he was so ugly he was almost cute. He had character that some of my friends' newer models could only hope to live long enough to acquire. Oh, the stories he could have told.

At the end of Christmas break in 1986, my friend, Lara, and I loaded up Bullet, left our homes in Missouri and headed west for college. Unfortunately, Bullet wasn't too keen on the idea. In Kansas, snow started falling. Within an hour, it was a full-fledged blizzard. We were engulfed in white. Snow started building up on my car and we pulled over regularly to kick the snow off the wheel wells and clean off the windshield wipers.

As we continued driving, an evil force took over the windshield wipers. The right wiper began wiping off of its usual course. The windshield wipers were no longer synchronized. The right wiper occasionally bumped into the left, threatening to get caught, and then pulling away. Within a couple of minutes, the right wiper had shifted its course completely and was now wiping off the hood of the car. It gradually worked its way back to the windshield, where it fought again with the left. The left wiper tried valiantly to stay the course, but eventually lost the battle as they caught, stuck together, wiggled and eventually pointed together at the road ahead, no longer wiping anything at all.

Bullet was an oil burner. He didn't need much gas, but he drank oil like an

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