The first time I laid eyes on my first car, a 1993 Geo Metro, I was a bit apprehensive about having to drive my step-mom's nine-year-old seafoam hand-me-down.

How was I supposed to look trendy driving an eye-sore? What would it be like to have a teeny two-door car that the last string of my high school's junior varsity football team could lift?

Well, all my worries flew away once I was soaring down Interstate 20 with the music blaring and the scent of freedom surging in through the open window.

Just so you know, freedom smells like a mixture of gasoline and the dumpster behind a Mexican restaurant.

The intoxicating aroma of independence was extinguished a little each time I had to call my dad to rescue me because some doohickey had been dislodged from the corresponding jiggamawhatsit, something needed to be tightened or my tire exploded.

Well, none of my tires ever exploded, but I can't count the times I've been among the weary travelers waiting for a savior to deliver them from the broken-down, car-littered shoulders of I-20. Or Highway 49. Or Benton Road.

It got to the point where I didn't bother getting out of the car to peek under the hood. The passersby already knew I hadn't a clue about my own car. They saw me in the exact spot last week kicking it and cursing.

So, I had gotten into the habit of pulling over and picking up my handy-dandy cell phone to call my dad or Chris, my boyfriend.

They'd arrive and ask me what the deal was. I'd shrug and say, "Probably the battery connector deals are loose or something." They almost always were.

After everything was all fixed, I was left wondering when and where something else would break.

What do you do with a car like that? Well, I just turned the music up to drown out the rattling of the important-sounding things.

We have been through it all, Metro (as my sister, Ashley, and I lovingly call it) and me. Wrong-way turns down one-way streets. Screeching halts behind trucks that were stopped at a light of which I was, apparently, oblivious.

I'll never forget the time we hopped a curb and rolled into someone's front yard. Or the time I nearly sideswiped someone in Monroe on my second date with my boyfriend. Or the time my sister and I witnessed an accident on the ride home where a car flipped several times and finally landed in the median of I-20.

Metro was there when my sister and I had a fight on her prom night and obliged when I needed a fast getaway. A few short months later, Metro grudgingly carried my sister and me to Tech for her first year at school.

We've all made it through, except Metro. It now sits in the parking lot near my dorm on its death bed.

Last week something finally broke on it that was more expensive to repair than the car was worth: the transmission.

Dad and Ro, my generous step-mom, decided to forgo the rebuilding operation and help me find a new car.

A sleek 2000 Chevy Malibu with a CD player, four doors and a real trunk that doesn't slam shut of its own volition possibly crushing your spinal cord.

Ahhh, memories. Metro, you will be missed.

Rindy Metcalf is a junior journalism major from Bossier City and serves as a news editor for The Tech Talk. E-mail comments to rdm018@latech.edu.