My Little Sunshine

Friday afternoon the warm sun glinted off the polished white hard top of my convertible. I was beaming, my chin held high, ready for a vacation as I crossed the office parking lot. After a nice compliment from my boss and a week of much accomplishment, I was ready take off. As I popped the trunk to tuck away my new "Convertible" laptop, I noticed a few black and purple spots on the trunk lid. There were about eight more on the roof. The birds were roosting in the tree next my parking spot and indulging in some late summer berries. Then they apparently mistook the shiny white hard-top for the white porcelain of a toilet bowl. Ah, wildlife!
I decided to leave the top on and head straight for paradise. Paradise Car Wash in Apple Valley is one of my favorite places on earth. Whenever I take a trip to Paradise, the attendants kindly scrub the bird poop off my car, while I hang out inside the office, chatting with Rainbow the parrot. She's a little bit cooler than the birds in my work parking lot. For one thing, she can talk. For another, she never poops on cars, only in her bird litter. I suppose she'd probably get fired for pooping on cars at the car wash, and she's smart enough to have figured this out.
Friday afternoon I never made it to paradise. Instead the little convertible went to a far darker place, East Bloomington. I was listening to the lilting East Duluth accents of Lori and Julia on FM107, enjoying the sunny afternoon drive, when my automotive world changed forever.
Unfortunately, on Cedar Avenue South, my car sustained grave injuries. Fortunately, I did not. Right now I'm not sure if my little car is going to pull through. He took a bad hit and I don't know yet what is cosmetic and what is structural. I can't talk about the details of the accident, but my emotions are running high. I needed to talk about my little car.
He's a Honda Del Sol, which roughly translated means Honda of the Sun in Spanish. I love the Del Sol moniker, not only because this car lets me bask in the sunshine like an iguana on a rock, but also because this little car has brought so much sunshine into my life. Some of you might know about my first Del Sol. It was a gleaming cherry red beauty that met an untimely end. A group home van rear-ended me while I was stopped in traffic. The van hit my old Del Sol really, really hard. My first Del Sol died sacrificing its crumple zones for me.
After years spent motoring my Festiva with flames, an Aspire that couldn't aspire to get up to 65, and a Pontiac with a hole in the driver's side door, the new Del Sol offered me a second chance at owning a respectable car. Plus, unlike the Pontiac, when I'm driving the Del Sol my left foot is never gets splashed with icy water in the dead of winter. The integrity of the hull is at 100%. Well, it was at 100% until last Friday.
I'm filled with uncertainty about what might happen to my little car, and he doesn't have his first appointment with the auto body surgeon until Friday morning. I've been vacationing in Vegas, and this has cast a little shadow over my trip. My heart was in my throat last night when I spotted a Del Sol in the resort parking lot. I could imagine my Del Sol, alone at home, its side bashed in and its once shiny alloy wheels smeared with the rubber of another car's tires. My Del Sol, my little sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. Please don't take my sunshine away.