Speedracer has bit the dust

My poor old car has finally had it. It started overheating on Sunday so we took it in yesterday after it started overheating again on my way to work. The short story, it will cost more to fix the car than the car is worth. So, the good news: I get a new car. The bad news: we can't afford one. The bad news also means that instead of waiting until next year and maybe getting what I wanted, we will just have to get me what we can afford. Bummer.

You would think I would be happy about getting a new car. Somewhere deep inside me I am, but part of me is not. Blame it on the pregnancy hormones, but I will miss that car. It was the first new (used for 1 year) car that I ever had. It would be 10 years old next year. It got me through the end of college and the beginning of my new life in Houston. It made many a trip from Austin to Houston as I commuted back and forth on the weekends between school and boyfriend. I am truly mourning the loss of my car. How silly is that. There are so many things wrong with that car, yet I like my car.

I have spent 5 years locking and unlocking the car from the passenger side because the lock in the driver's door fell out. Until my husbnad put in a CD player and windshielf antennae two year ago, radio was a commodity that I sometimes got and sometimes didn't. Otherwise I used the tape deck or a portable CD player hooked into the lighter. The lighter is just a hole because I lost the lighter part long ago. There are wounds in the car from my smoking days where I didn't quite make it out the window or accidentally rammed my lit cigarette into the ceiling or dropped it in my lap. The hubcap that fell off 7 years ago that I never got fixed is still in the trunk. The ceiling sports some mean water stains due to the sun roof leaking. It was a horrible trip to Dallas in a major storm that was the first time I realized the sun roof leaked. Conveniently, it happened right after my warranty expired. I drove from Austin to Dallas with a drip on my head and a puddle in my passenger seat.

I had my first wreck in that car. It was two days after my first ever speeding ticket. I was 21 years old. Me and my room mate were leaving 6th street and it was drizzling. I was going very slow, but didn't quite stop in time for the red light. I hydroplaned into the Buick in front of me. Not a scratch on the Buick. My car is plexiglass in the front so it was torn up pretty bad. I was hysterical. My newish car, my first wreck. I was sure the car was totalled. It was the end of the world. Yet, I made it through. $2000 worth of damage and a month later, I had my car back in one piece.

I had my second wreck in that car. This one was worse. I pulled out of a blind intersection and was hit by a lady going about 35 miles an hour. Neither of us was too hurt. I had some bruises and hit my head, but my car was not so good. Neither car was driveable. I was even more of a basketcase this time because I had a warrant for an unpaid speeding ticket. Nothing too exciting, just never paid the ticket because I was a) lazy and b) broke and my money went to drinking and school instead of important things like staying out of jail. The police were nice enough to let me go since I was a crying, hysterical ball of estrogen. This time it was more money and more time and the place that fixed it, didn't so much fix it as jam it all back together and call it fixed. It never ran the same.

Goodbye old friend. I will miss you terribly. You have been good to me, even when you didn't want to run and I pushed you anyway. Goodbye.