The last time we tailed Constance Ault, she was buzzing around town in a red Volkswagen Beetle we identified by its license plate message: MYBUGEE.

        The two of them are still up to their old tricks.

Constance Ault and her Volkswagen Beetle (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        Honking at people who honk. Waving to people who wave.

        “It still is my buggy,” the Mount Washington grandmother says, nearly two years after our first interview. “People still wave and honk, but not as much, because more people have them (retro Beetles).”

        Still, she says, the mood of Americans on streets and highways seems not to have been affected greatly by terrorism and economic doldrums.

        “Sometimes, when I park in a parking lot, little kids will come over and want to see the car,” she says.

        She uses the car for quick errands and extended trips, some as long as five hours.

        “It's a great car,” she says. “We have had no trouble. And it's in good condition.”

        In case you were looking for a “bugee” for yourself, she has no plans to get rid of it.

        The car, which she bought new in July 1999, is her first to carry a vanity license plate.

        “This bug just cried out for something special,” she said in May 2000. “Something other than a plain old license plate.”

        The idea for the name came from her grandmother, Virginia Bowie, who died in 1993.

        Mrs. Bowie used to thank her granddaughter for taking her to the doctor, and to the grocery, with a simple, chipper “Thanks for the buggy ride!”

        Today, Mrs. Ault, 56, is a grandmother herself, with 7-month-old twin grandsons she cares for part time.

        Buggy rides in the “bugee” are part of the fun.

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