Recently, I just hit the 200,000 mile club in my wonderful (in my eyes only) car. When I first got my car, it was already at 180,000 miles, so this really shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’ve known that this day was coming and should have been bracing myself for it, but I still can’t help but to be upset. I have pictures of my puppy at 2 months old riding around in the passenger seat. I’ve gone to countless new places in that car. But I need to remember that not everything was memorable in a good way.
In the three years that I have owned it, my car and I have been through a lot together. There was the time that we got stuck in someone’s icy drive way and hit their garage door. There was the time that we parked under an acorn tree and got a nice acorn-sized crack on my windshield. There’s that mysterious dent that we got after staying too long in a Walmart parking lot. And then there was that time that we had to be towed after someone stole my kay and I couldn’t get inside of my car.
We’ve put a lot of work into each other as well. I got some new side mirrors (because I accidently broke one off after leaning on it. Duct tape just wasn’t a good look). I spent $180 to get a new key (after the first one got stolen). I got new floor mats (so nobody would see the weird stains on the floor that my car came with). I put in a new battery (after it wouldn’t start and I got stranded in New Jersey). In return, my car got me everywhere in a fraction of the time that it should actually take, which is where my love truly stems from (as a chronically late person). Even more importantly, my car’s brakes have been a life saver and I will never forget them.
Regardless of the love that we clearly have for one another, it is time to part ways for a number of reasons. There’s the engine light that came on a month after I got the car. There’s the oil light that comes on whenever I drive more than 45 minutes a day. There’s the bucking that occurs when I try to switch gears. There’s the fact that I couldn’t pass an inspection even if I tried. The charger port hasn’t worked since the second month, which has led to many frantic drives not knowing where I’m going with 15% battery life on my phone. And there are still those weird stains on the ceiling that have disturbed me since the day I got the car. Floor mats can’t help me with those. Most importantly, though, the air conditioning just went and, even though it’s a #firstworldproblem, I’m not dealing with it.
It’s time to move on and that means a whole new struggle that can’t be fixed with Fix-A-Flat: buying a new car as a broke college student. The bills for student loans are going to be coming in all too soon and I am not ready to be taking on a car payment with that in mind. And, despite the fact that I’ve been working for over two years, I literally have no idea what I have to show for it.
Craigslist, my old friend.
I’ve been searching for weeks now, but everything is all wrong. It’s either too ugly or too boxy or too small or just not the right color. As soon as I think that I might like something, it’s gone in the next two hours. And don’t even get me started on all of the weird people that I have to deal with. It’s the danger of Craigslist.
Let’s be honest, I’ll probably keep driving my car until it completely dies. Maybe it’s because I’m attached to it. Maybe it’s because I genuinely don’t want to deal with cleaning it out. Either way, the thought of selling it already makes me feel guilty, but that’s mostly guilt towards whoever buys it.
