10 Years of Driving The MegaBug

Today is a very special day for me, because it marks ten years since I made my first big dream come true.

On January 3, 2011 I bought The MegaBug!!!

I’ve written several posts on buying her (purchase, three year anniversary, five year anniversary, and six years, because I had the coolest transformation shot from my wedding), but this year, I’d also like to share what I did to make this dream come true.

The Purchase Story

When I turned 15, my step-dad and I began searching for a bug. Ideally in green. On Christmas of that year, Tim’s brother let us know about a bug in Raymond, NH, and I remember wishing Christmas could be over so we could head down and look at it. It was GREEN!

We made it on January 3, 2011. The day I started driver’s ed and exactly one month before I got my license.

Because of this I couldn’t even take my own car for a test drive!

Nevertheless, it gained Tim’s scrutinizing stamp of approval once we took it to his buddy’s automotive shop for a mini inspection and he declared it “a tight little shit box.”

I paid $2,700 cash and and self financed the timing belt and water pump replacement it needed, which Tim’s friend did before we (Tim) drove it home. I couldn’t even drive my car until April because it had a manual transmission, which I wanted, but was not about to learn how to drive in the snow!

Yep, I bought my car without being able to drive it, and unsure if I’d be able to get the hang of driving stick. (I did, and Aquarius is a stick as well!) Talk about believing in yourself.

Fun fact: The original license plate was “GRVYBUG” for “groovy bug.” I was kind of a hippie. It wasn’t until after registering it that my co-worker came up with “MegaBug.” But I was cheap and not about to pay to change it!

About a year later, while driving the bug through the Hooksett tolls, the attendant asked why my license plate was “gravy bug.” That’s when I changed it.

You know the feeling when you try on a great dress, discover a new hobby, or find someone you click with and feel undoubtedly - from the inside out - “this is me”? That’s how I feel about The MegaBug: she’s a representation and an extension of who I am.

Because of this, people started calling me Miss MegaBug, which is how my business got its name. (My original business was “MegaBug Photography.”)

The Why and How I Did It Story

For as long as I can remember I’ve loved Volkswagen Beetles. The bubbly shape, the uplifting colors, and the flower holder by the steering wheel, of course.

One Christmas, Aunt Steph and Uncle Dave gave me a yellow VW Beetle for my Barbies! I loved how it came with its own key.

When I was around 11 I became serious about owning one, and that Christmas, Nanny and Grandpa gave my brother and I one of those retro plastic banks that was loaded with change. We split the $1,100, my share being used to open the bank account I would use for my bug fund, my brother’s going towards driver’s ed, coincidentally.

Then I got to work.

I took a babysitting course (even though I wasn’t great with kids) and saved every penny that came my way. I counted the days until I could apply for my work permit at 14 so I could make some serious minimum wage cash.

Within a month of moving to Sugar Hill in June of 2009, I was working as many hours as possible at Polly’s Pancake Parlor.

On top of that- this was totally not legal- I often worked 12+ hour days in the summer so I could save even more money. (Shh!) My second job was cleaning rooms at a local inn and serving when they had catering gigs. It was under the table, and I was earning double what I did per hour at Polly’s.

I’ve always been rather talkative, and sometimes I’d share my bug dreams with customers at Polly’s. A day after one occasion, my boss handed me a box that was dropped off by a customer for me. Inside was a die cast Volkswagen Beetle, in green- my color of choice!

Every night I held that bug in my hands as I fell asleep, imagining myself behind the wheel, my independence, and all the places I’d go.

I wrote down the specifications of my ideal bug at least once a month, and right before my sixteenth birthday I had $6,000 in the bank.

But while Tim and I were searching for a bug, I received pushback from him. He had offered to give me his old Chevy S-10 truck as my first car, and he and Mom didn’t think a bug was practical. They often tried to dissuade me from buying one, especially since a free car was on the table.

Despite that pushback, worrying I wouldn’t find the right bug, and stressing I wouldn’t have enough money to buy a bug and maintain it, I persevered. And ten years later, I’ve had no regrets.

The Past 10 Years

When I bought The MegaBug she has 116,000 miles. Now she has close to 210,000.

The MegaBug has driven me back and forth to high school and my internship at the Littleton Courier, on adventures with friends, to my high school graduation, on my long college commutes (where much of her mileage came from), my job as a bank teller, all over the North Country as my first “big” job as executive director for a chamber of commerce, photo shoots with my first business, to Nanny and Grandpa’s house, and more.

I have so many memories with The MegaBug and she feels like family.

Today she’s resting, patiently waiting for a few repairs. She has a gash across her front bumper from a run in with black ice at 70 mph. She took the brunt of the guardrail collision and needed no repairs. I drove her home from the collision. The airbags didn’t need to deploy and from that day I’ve had 100% confidence in that car. She may have broken down on me a few times, but I deeply feel that she’ll always protect me.

Now I have a convertible bug that was my ultimate dream car (Aquarius), but I’ll never stop loving or driving The MegaBug. This year we’re going to replace some parts, clean up the interior, and hopefully give her a paint job. She may be a 1999, but she won’t look like one!

The MegaBug has given me her all over the past ten years. We’ve driven almost half her miles together and have shared many memories. She gave me my independence and instilled in me the confidence that I can achieve whatever I set my mind too, no matter how crazy a dream may seem or how much pushback it gets.

Buying a Volkswagen Beetle was the first big dream I was able to achieve, and that’s part of the reason why I’ll always keep The MegaBug. To me, she’s a reminder of what I’m capable of.

I’m so proud of what I’ve accomplished since bringing her home. I graduated high school a year early; started my first legit business at 18; graduated from college at 19 with a bachelor’s, two associate’s, a minor, and $0 in student loan debt; became self-employed at 21 and bought my house a few months after- all of which were seemingly impossible and received many skeptical eyebrow raises.

But hopping into that little bug and driving to my next destination reminds me that the crazy, “unwise,” and far out dreams are possible when you have tenacity and a solid belief in yourself.

I look forward to what the future holds for me and my little green bug.

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