Farewell, old friend
I was not planning to buy a new car. My blue Honda Pilot was going on eight years old and, since it was paid off, I was going to drive it another 120,000 miles or until it croaked, whichever came first.
But I’d been hearing a small sound coming from the back – not exactly a metallic rattling, but something closer to playing-card-in-the-bicycle-spokes. Patrick took a look and concluded that some part came loose and was flapping around. He ordered a part and planned to do the repair.
Last weekend, he put the car up on jacks, crawled under, and saw what was really going on under there.
“It’s all rusting out,” he said. He shimmied his tall self out from underneath and opened his hand to show me a couple bits of metal.
“Things are starting to fall off,” he said. Closer inspection and a bit of research told us it would be expensive to get the car back into shape.
And that’s how we ended up test-driving new cars this week.
“We’ll just have a look,” I said. But saying those words while walking into a car showroom is the same as saying them while walking into the animal shelter. You are about to drive home with – or in – something expensive and new.
You know how dietitians say you should never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach? You should not test drive a new car without wearing a clothespin on your nose. That smell will get you every time.
We decided on the car we wanted, got a fair price for the trade-in, considering, made the deal and were handed the new keys.
Handing the salesman the spare keys to the old car, I felt a twinge of remorse. Just two days earlier, the Pilot was a good car with a small rattle. It would be up on jacks for an hour, repaired with Patrick’s expertise and about 50 bucks in parts, and back on the road burning through another 120,000 miles.
But things weren’t that simple – are they ever? – and we were catapulted into a new mindset. I’ve never been all that interested in cars, don’t know much about them and can be pretty happy in anything with four wheels and SiriusXM radio.
How quickly I turned my back on the old, blue car. Sure, the back seat was sticky, there was dog hair all over, the passenger seat had ink from a pen exploding, the space between the front seats was filled with petrified french fries. The car was tired. But at this time last week, I was happy with it.
We got into our new Jeep. As we drove off the lot we passed a blue car, covered in road salt and missing its license plate. It looked so sad there, the car I left for something better. That has to be a metaphor for something.
I pulled onto the highway, adjusted the seat, turned on the radio and inhaled the sweet, sweet new car smell.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.