On my sixteenth birthday my parents tried to surprise me with a car, but they missed.

The line is a compact piece of deadpan, automotive-themed humor built on a literal twist: a “surprise” car becomes a physical object that can be “missed,” as if it were thrown. The joke also plays on expectations around milestone birthdays—especially the cultural trope of receiving a first car at sixteen—by undercutting the sentiment with slapstick misdirection. In Cotter’s persona as a car enthusiast and storyteller, it reads as self-deprecating and affectionate toward car culture, suggesting that even formative automotive memories are filtered through comedy and exaggeration rather than nostalgia alone.