If someone were to drive through sophomore Lila Henry’s neighborhood in the early morning, they would see her driving an unassuming gray SUV to pick up her friends for school. If they were to look a little closer, they would see that the inside is anything but unassuming.
The interior of Henry’s car is decked out with a collection of random items and things left behind by her friends that have become a defining feature of the vehicle. Amongst these are the numerous stuffed animals, mostly Christmas themed, that have been gifted to Henry through birthdays, Secret Santas and other gift exchanges by the people she drives around.
“Anna [one of my friends] got me the first [stuffed animal],” Henry said. “She was last-minute shopping because she thought she needed to get me a birthday gift. So she got me a snail Jellycat that looked like a peppermint. I named it Patty after Peppermint Patty.”
Henry’s Birthday is in December, hence the Christmas theme.
Almost every stuffed animal has a story along with it or a reason why it was given to her. They are kept in various places around her car so all her friends can enjoy them on morning drives to school and afternoon 7Brew trips.
“I think she got [a stuffed animal] from a Christmas exchange she did with her friends,” sophomore Aiden Katz, one of Henry’s good friends, said. “And then one, I think someone gave it to her because they were paying her for something. She also has a bear, which I think someone gave her to say thank you for driving.”
As the first person to be able to drive in their friend group, Henry, and by extension, her car, have become very familiar to their friend group as the thing to go to whenever they need a ride.
“Whenever I need a ride, she takes me,” Katz said. “And her car is always full because everyone needs a ride.”
These shared carpool experiences are dear to many of Henry’s friends and have led to many special, and sometimes awkward, experiences, according to Henry.
“[Henry] has a bear in the back she keeps buckled,” sophomore Anna Sullinger, one of Henry’s friends, said. “One time we went to 7 Brew, and Eisley [my friend] wasn’t buckled and the guy taking our order noticed her and the bear, and he was like, ‘oh, at least the bear’s buckled back there.”
While the stuffed animals make up the majority of the items in Henry’s car, they’re not the only things she has.
Thrown in the trunk of her car is a graveyard of sweatshirts that her friends have left behind and have no intentions of taking back. They ended up piled on top of a bag of soccer balls used at SM East Girls Soccer practice and an old pair of high heels from a dance previously this year.
More entertaining and questionable items than the ones in her trunk live in the front of her car. Including a picture of YouTuber Mr. Beast that proudly hangs on her passenger side visor.
“I was sitting in the passenger seat, and then I needed to check my reflection,” Katz said. “So I pulled down her window visor and Mr. Beast is just there like, oh, hello.”
When asked, nobody really knew how the Mr. Beast photo got there, but it is a proud part of the collection.
The eclectic interior of Henry’s car truly makes it a unique experience to ride in, and one that her friends take advantage of at every opportunity.
“She has a lot of little [stuffed animals] around and a lot of trash,” Katz said. “It's not the cleanest car, but it's awesome.”
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