Goodbye, old girl



A week ago, on the way home, we had a bit of a deluge in my neck of the woods and I found myself going through a puddle that was a bit deeper than anticipated. Two-thirds of the way through, and the battery light came on and she died there, though not before getting me to the side of the road where I waited on a tow truck in the monsoon.

She came home and we hoped it was something manageable. Something shorted, a soaked genny, some people in similar situations in similar cars reported the serpentine going off axle (which could be bad, if it tore through anything in its death throes, or merely expensive).

It wasn't. Of course not. It was her heart.

"Mind if I try giving her a start?" said the friendly guy who towed her from home to the dealership after a week of futile attempts to see if she would spark when she was dry. "I hope I'm wrong," he said a few moments later, "but I'm afraid water might have been sucked into the engine. How deep was that puddle?" Not that deep, but he wasn't wrong.

Yesterday, diagnosis confirmed by the dealership. The friendly people at Geico told me on the phone when I thought to call them that it was covered and I have good comprehensive (a thing I'm old enough to pay for and hapless enough to forget I'm doing so). No deductible, and they'd send someone out to look at it and decide whether to fix it or total it. Those of you who have knowledge of such things or who can read a title know where this is going.

She was a good car until she wasn't. Modern cars don't age well and modern Bugs certainly don't. She'd come to be a bit of a money pit and frustration, I can't even lie in her obituary. But she was also full of memories, and I thought I was fine until I was cleaning her out today. Leave the key at the desk, send the adjuster a photo of the title, they'll start processing a check. 

I had a lousy little multitool I used to take the plate off so I could turn it in (the plate, no one wants the multitool), and it was a lousy thing for the job but I kept at it because the ritual was important. It's not exactly like putting a pet to sleep; it's not exactly not like it, either.

She was my second life car after an astonishingly brutal and survivable collision killed her immediate predecessor, so she had a RESPAWN license plate that won't mean anything on another car so we'll just turn it in.

I wooed my wife in this car.

Top down, mountain roads. Wind in your hair, stars over your head. I haven't been able to put the top down for months because the windows have been messed up. The sun in your eyes. Neil Young singing "Long May You Run", quite possibly singing it on this car's stereo; I don't know if the Beach Boys sang "Caroline, No," on the same wires but it's not statistically impossible. To the mountains, to the beach. Into crisis and away into safety. You were a good car, you were. Sleep, little bug. Sleep.

Comments

ScatterKat said…
Such a fitting tribute, my love. I'm not crying, you're crying. I love you so much.
Lee Hoffman said…
You are in our thoughts, Dear Eric. Be well.

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