A bus passenger one morning told us that she had followed a new-to-her path to a parking lot, where she had left her car.

When she got to the car, she activated her card or doodad that opens her car. (Not familiar with these doodads, as Dolores and I prefer actual keys that we can lose or bend so they won't work) According to all the latest technology available for such doodads, the car lights flashed. (Why do car lights have to flash for you to unlock your car?)

But the flashing lights were from a car two or three vehicles away in the parked row.

Nice story. We all have them. I told the passengers my wrong-car story, only it took place before doodads helped us find that we were at the wrong car -- or SUV or pickup.

Mine happened with a Subaru, which, I think somehow makes any car tale a bit better -- unless it's a tale about a Toyota to which we switched about 20 years ago due to their getting better gasoline mileage.

My Subaru, a blue one as so many were during a certain era of the little beasties, was parked at the post office. I came out with my arms loaded with mail, including a lot of junk mail, your typical postal collection on any given day, and was looking down at it, thumbing through it as I walked toward Sally (I always named Subarus before Dolores and I began naming Toyotas.)

I saw the blue and, still looking through the mail, reached for the door handle. Just in time to see a lady sitting in the driver's seat.

The wrong-car passenger of the recent morning said, "I'll bet she wasn't your lady."

"No," I replied, "and it wasn't my Subaru."

No one got to tell these true car adventures back in the good old days of horses and wagons. Another reason to prefer the good-now days.

But most of my Subaru adventures didn't concern mistaken identity. One did concern a would-be Subaru burglar, who tried to break into the locked right front passenger door while not bothering with the unlocked tail lift where my laptop and camera were hidden in the trunk space below.

A friend and I had been at the movies in Auburn, and, returning to the car, my friend noticed scratches in the glass of the right front passenger window. Scratches were always common on my Subarus, but never in windows. We decided that whoever had been trying to break and enter had been frightened away by someone approaching in the parking lot.

The computer and camera were safe.

Why the lift was unlocked was probably typical of cars whose owners had backed them into tree stumps, which they hadn't noticed. At least that was Sally Subaru's sad tale. No dents were there. It just would not lock.

Dolores' cousin didn't know that, which made our Boston trip a little more bearable, because I was a card-carrying cynic. Dolores had suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm and had been at Massachusetts General Hospital for a couple of weeks after they miraculously saved her life. When it was time for her to return home, a relative had taken her to another relative's apartment in a not-too-pricey suburb.

Dolores' cousin agreed that she and I would go together to bring Dolores back to her house. (Dolores and I had had three dates when the rupture had occurred, so I was not quite on the outside, looking in.)

On a snowy morning, I drove through Bucksport on the way to pick up the cousin, when Sally's windshield wiper broke. I stopped in Bucksport for a half-hour to have it replaced.

"You're late," the cousin noted when I arrived at her midcoast home to pick her up.

We drove to the seedy neighborhood, arriving in late afternoon.

"Be sure and lock the doors," the cousin said.

I did. I locked all four doors. I didn't tell her that Sally's lift wouldn't lock.The next morning Sally was untouched. Who in Massachusetts wants to steal from an ancient, rusting, blue Subaru with Maine plates?

We brought Dolores back to Maine in a snowstorm, arriving at the cousin's house in the evening.

I thought Sally had done a remarkable job considering the at least 150,000 miles under her tires.

Sally always did a remarkable job, such as getting my son and I home one evening in a blinding snowstorm. Visibility was so poor I suggested Scotty get out and walk ahead of Sally to show us the road. He declined, but Sally still got us safely home.

One morning Scotty was driving after another bad snowstorm. (I don't recall any good snowstorms.) He pulled over into a rest area because he became nervous about driving in the deep snow. The snow was deep and unbroken in the rest area.

"We'll never get out of here," he said.

"Yes, we will," I responded.

Dads have to show confidence around teenage sons.

We switched seats, I put Sally in gear, and out she went as if it were a bright summer day. I always appreciated Sally after that, showing a dad to be a better driver than a teenager.

Our first Subaru was an ancient critter with four-wheel drive and a frozen oil-drain plug. So we never changed her oil. My oldest son dragged it home, having bought it from a high-school buddy. I don't forget the price, perhaps a pack of cigarettes -- my son did smoke and dragged those awful odors everywhere he went, including home.

My son sold the little beast to another buddy, and the last I recall seeing it was when it was parked nearly atop a snowdrift in the front-yard of the high school. Probably the centerpiece for an ancient-history class.

After Dolores returned from Massachusetts General, she was afraid to drive so we had no need for two cars. She had just bought, before her sudden illness, a 2002 Toyota with some 23,000 miles on her. Since Sally Subaru only had about 189,000 under her tired tires, we gave her to my youngest son, now that he had learned that you can drive a Subaru out of a snowed-in pullover as well as into one.

The little "brat" (I'll call him that for what he did with Sally.) removed her duct tape, patched those cancerous rust spots, and sold her.

Neither Dolores nor I have ever been able to sell anything, and we'd never have thought of selling old Sally.

Maybe kids aren't as dumb as we make them out to be.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2012