August
7, 2017
Greetings from
driver’s seat,
There is not a
word for a compassionate end of life when it comes to your car, but I might
suggest ‘Autonasia’ or ‘Mercy Towing’.
I did not have
a romantic relationship with this car.
It was not some classic collectible that turned heads as I drove through
town. It was a Dad Car. Yes it had a sunroof and leather seats and a
few gadgets, but in the end it was one of many bland, anonymous sedans you
might see parked in every driveway in suburbia.
It was
reliable. There was room for all my kids when I took them someplace. It went
great distances at high speed. I could
roll down the windows and crank up the music and for a while I could be in any
car including the one I didn’t buy when I bought this one thirteen years ago.
It was like an
old coat. I got in this car and drove it
without even thinking about what I was doing. It became a part of my proprioception. There, now I’ve used that word.
It would have
been smarter for me to sell the car some years ago. I told myself that I would drive it until the
boys were out of college, that this was part of my fiscal discipline, and so as
long as nothing went catastrophically wrong, I would forge ahead.
After 275,000
miles it was reasonable to expect that there would be the occasional repair,
which there was, and in sometimes more often than occasional. There were some quirks; like the only way I
knew the car was running was the ‘Check Engine’ light would be on. There were also several warning messages from
the console that told me about dangerous failures. These have been present for years now.
But slowly it
began to lose connection with what I wanted it to do. The car had finally become more of a
liability than it was possible to ignore.
I had already been stranded on the side of the road a couple times, and
it threatened worse.
Any car this
age will make noises; squeaks and groans and rattles. There was a loud banging
noise whenever I went over a bump, which always startled passengers who were
not familiar with my car. I am not sure
but I think people on the sidewalk could hear it too since it was one of the
few times in the life of the car that people were watching me as I went by. I was a travelling percussion section.
I thought I
might sell it but to be honest the value of the car doubled when I filled it
with gas. I told someone that my suit
was worth more than my car and every day that went by that became truer. I knew I had waded into a dilemma.
It became sort
of like a pet you’ve had for a long time.
It leaked fluids in inappropriate places. There was an occasional bad smell. My family and friends all tried to prepare
me. It’s never going to be
convenient. It’s going to be messy. It’s
going to be expensive. There is not a great way to end it.
I knew all
that, but I had this fantasy about running it until it turned over 300,000
miles. That seemed fitting. It would be a good way to go out after all
these years of service. I should say
here that the car did not care at all about this plan.
The time
finally came to make a decision about the car; to keep putting money into it,
gamble on its future, or call the Kervorkian Towing Company. I made the right choice.
Unfortunately,
a few days later, I made the wrong choice. I re-chose and tried to save Old
Yeller. I rolled the dice and lost and then doubled down and lost again. And so it remained an inert collection of
metal and rubber and plastic, and I remained poorer for the effort. It did not look at me with hopeful eyes or
wag its tail when I said goodbye. It was
what it always was.
Sometime today
the Car Fairy will come and spirit the thing away to a farm out in the country
where it can run free in giant fields.
Well, that’s what we’ll tell the kids.
In fact I
donated it to NPR, which I feel a little guilty about, but the intent was that
somehow it would live on in the stories of the Moth Radio Hour. It’s better I don’t know the actual process where
that takes place; turning a hunk of metal and rubber and plastic, … and
memories… into cash. I’ll just picture
it out running in those fields.
Hope
this finds you with the windows down,
David
Copyright
© 2017 David Smith
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