#33 Tell the true story of a dramatic moment in your life, but weave in one secret and one lie.  
When I left Alaska I had all my ducks in a row.  I had a plan on what I was going to do and when I was going to do it.  When I got back to Minnesota I subbed for two years in Buffalo.  It seemed that while I was in Alaska, the market for social studies teachers had not changed. I had kind of thought that having five years of experience in one place would at least get me in the door for some interviews.  While I was subbing, I spent a lot of time filling in for special education teachers. The special ed teachers at the high school really took me under their wing.  They were constantly telling me that I was good with the kids and it was obvious I enjoyed what I was doing.  A few of them mentioned that I should go back to school and get licensed to teach special ed.  Finally, I decided to take their advice and in the summer of 2008 I started driving to St. Cloud for summer school. (This was that magical summer when gas cost $4.00 a gallon)  My partner in this mission was my 1995 Gold Saturn.  I LOVED this car.  I loved that it was a Saturn, I loved that it was gold, I loved that it was pretty reliable.  Heck, I even liked my license plate that said “HBT” we said that it stood for Heather Bakke’s Taxi.  My friends Shawn and Sue called it Golden Boy.  Golden Boy was the mythical perfect teenage boy that my dad always talked about in his classes. My car was the mythical perfect car! My car had almost 300,000 miles on it. I joked that the car was starting to fight off death, both side mirrors were gone, if you were in stop and go traffic you had to turn on the heat, and then the dome light disconnected from the ceiling.  It was hanging by the wires and kind of resembled a chandelier. It seemed to me that all of the scars were just cosmetic, until the 90 degree day in June when my beloved Saturn died at the side of the road.  I called a tow truck and was towed back to St. Cloud.  They told me that it would cost $80 to run a diagnostic to see what was wrong.  The guy told me that it probably wasn’t even worth $80.  I was in denial and sunk $80 in to the Saturn to delay what was truly inevitable.  I can’t even remember what was wrong with it, but it would have cost more to fix the car than it was worth.  I called my parents and asked them to come and get me and to bring several garbage bags to pack up all my stuff that was in the car.  I was so sad about my car, but I was even sadder when I thought about the fact that I had a good thing going in Alaska.  I was stupid to walk away from a guaranteed job and I was never going to find anything as good as I had up there.  Thankfully, the years healed many of those feelings.  I finished my special education license, became a special education teacher, and found a great job.  But, every time I see a gold Saturn driving down the road I get a little sad, wishing I still had my Golden Boy/Taxi.