If you’re like most of us here at Jalopnik, then you have likely been infatuated with the wonderful world of automobiles for as long as you can remember. I still remember the cars that all of my teachers drove, from preschool Miss Jennifer’s bright red 19999 Honda Accord coupe to my my senior year high school journalism teacher Miss Wegter’s tan Saab 9-3 five-door. We didn’t grow up with much, though, so there wasn’t a swath of cool cars that I got to ride in as a kid, but one pivotal memory stands out from the rest: I got to ride in a school bus monster truck in a K-Mart parking lot.
My poor parents… As car nerds from day one, my brother and I made our parents take us to every obscure car event we learned about. The early onset of an affinity for cars leads families on some weird quests, but it’s a beautiful thing to see a child express an innate passion. This question actually unearthed a core memory of mine that neither of my parents recall but my brother and I remember distinctly. We got a very brief ride in a monster truck that had an actual school bus body on top.
I remember the anticipation building as I waited in line in that chilly K-Mart parking lot. I remember climbing the seemingly endless mountain of stairs just to get inside, and once I got inside there were pacifiers hanging from the ceiling for some weird reason that I still don’t understand. We didn’t do anything crazy like jump over cars in the monster truck, heck I must’ve been a single-digit age at the time, but I got to say I rode in a freaking monster truck!
Think back to your childhood, and your early memories of being a car-obsessed weirdo. What vehicle did you ride in that you will never forget? Call your siblings or family members and ask them about the memory, too! It was a fun chance to call my big brother and reminisce about all the weird events that our patient parents took us to just so we could see cool cars. What was the coolest car that you actually got to ride in as a kid?