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Ann Arbor is a very walkable town, and has quite a decent bus system. We got by on one car for years and years, but when the kid was in high school, there were just too many times when she needed to be somewhere a noticeable distance from home at a specific time, and we broke down and acquired a second car.

I had read online that your ideal teenager car is a big old sturdy car, "like an old Taurus wagon." It made sense to me that you don't really want your inexperienced driver in a tin can, so when I found an old Taurus (not wagon) that seemed to be in reasonable shape (according to our mechanic), we bought it.

It had some rust, and some minor creases and dents. Just right for a teenager car.

It was named Ous Mellouli, after a young man who swam for Tunisia in the 2004 Olympics, and who has "the coolest name ever!"

Not a bad name for a watery looking car, whose primary job was to get the kid to before-school swim practice safely and on time (and by herself, so the 'rents didn't have to get up at 0-dark-30 and take her).

Ous has done a good job for us, only stranding the kid once, at the pool in summer time, with a dead starter.

He's showing his age -- getting louder and louder, and needing a brake job "in 5000 miles."

Our community college is the place in our county where they have all the high-tech equipment for training new auto mechanics. People donate cars for the budding mechanics to practice on.

Ous and I went to the community college last weekend, and saw two of his twins parked right next to each other, waiting for rehab by the students. This color seems to be unique to Fords from about 1995. I know when I see it the car is likely to either be a Taurus or an Escort from then. This is the first time I'd seen two cars at the same time apparently identical to mine. And with the empty parking place next to them -- I had to snap the group pic.
















I 'shopped the worst of the rust off Ous's passenger side. Yesterday as we got ready to go somewhere, I was momentarily surprised to see rust.

It is SO much more satisfying to fuss over cleaning things up in Photoshop! They stay fixed! Unlike real dirt, and real rust, and real peeling paint. You can fix those real things. Momentarily. Turn your back and turn to look again, and it will be as though you never did it at all. Your pictures, on the other hand, stay fixed, forever and ever.