"Milk Duds!"

I love Gremlins. Not the little creatures that turn evil if you feed them after midnight, but the cars. My friend's brother had a Gremlin (OK, it was actually a Pacer). Such a groovy 1970s space mobile. The huge window in the back, the curvy lines, awesome.

I love weird cars. You know, the kinds of cars that would make my sister, Rena, duck in embarrassment for fear one of her cheerleader teammates might spy her.

My mother, Dot, would purchase her cars based on how many bags of manure she could fit in the back (you know, for growing corn on the roof of our house), so she always had a huge station wagon. Her station wagon could seat 12 -- for dinner. It was gigantic!

My father, Ardale, would purchase a variety of cars, but they were always decked out with so many Ham radio antennas that it was sheer terror driving under a bridge or into a parking garage (remember the infamous Westside Pavillion experience, Rena?).

Since we never pay more than $1.00 for our cars, they tend to have fun personality quarks such as only being able to turn right or the fact that you can only enter though one door and exit through a different door. I keep trying to get Nigel to hand paint our car, but he hasn't done it yet.

I must admit that I always smile when I see an old beater car that's two-tone rust and held together with duct tape. Now that's some people I want to meet! Even more so if they're driving a Gremlin.