Sportage

I locked myself out of my car tonight.  I blame my pants.  I decided to wear my jeans with the short front pockets which my keys don't stay very well in.  This hasn't happened in a very long time, and it got me thinking about my old car.  Don't get me wrong I LOVE my updated version of the Kia Sportage, including the fact that it's almost paid off and it runs like a champ, but there are many things to be missed about the '96 version I had in college.

Things I miss about the 1996 Kia Sportage

• If I locked my keys in the car I could open the back door that was always unlocked and get in. 
• The latch on the tire required a trick to open so I could leave the back unlocked without worrying
• I had to have a tire cover on the back, so I had the sweetest orange crush tire cover ever.  
• When you turned the heat on it made the car smell like waffle crisp
• Manual Transmission
• The hockey puck stick shift
• Being able to pull into a parking spot and pull the keys out before even coming close to stopping.
• Being able to start the car without turning the key if you were parked on a hill or being towed.  
• The turning radius.  I could make a u turn on a one lane street with cars parked on both sides.  (This trait is all the more appreciated after driving a '76 F150 with no power steering.) 
• When the muffler pipe rusted and had a huge hole in it so my car sounded like a motorcycle for about a month. 
• The hay we could never manage to get out of the pockets behind the front seat.  (We have no idea what the last owners used the car for.) 
• Finally, I miss having the car knowledge necessary to keep that thing running for as long as we did. I almost did enough work on that car to build a whole new one.  (All with my dad's help of course.) Having a car that's not ghetto definitely made me lose some of those skills, but we did replace the brakes ourselves on it a couple months ago.   

I'm sure through this whole post your wondering who gets a kia, let alone 2?  I still love it, and I'll own papa smurf till he dies, but let's just say I will not be getting the 2011 version anytime soon.