ode to a 94 tracer...

Our car has decided to total itself. One of the cylinders dropped right into the engine, breaking a piston on the way, leaving metal shavings inside the engine....

the long and short of it: the engine block needs replacing. Which means rebuilding the entire engine. Which means 2500 minimum. Which means we're done...

I paid 2400 for that car two years ago.

And a wonderful two years it has been. That car has been my knight in green-blue shiny sheet metal. When I bought it, it smelled like the sweet dry grasses of my hometown... and I bought it from a good friend of my grandpa, who had lovingly maintained it all the years he owned it.

I dated skywalker while driving this vehicle. We took it on our honeymoon. I started a new life with this vehicle two years ago, when I got my job after graduating school, and became an adult officially.

Skywalker and I had expected to have this vehicle for another 5-10 years at least...

but things just happen.

I was actually very sad yesterday, somewhat unnaccountably considering the fact that this is a car we are talking about, not a family member. But we're donating it to charity, and so my consolation is that it will be put to the best use possible.

Still I can't help feeling that I am betraying it by giving up on it... kind of like my family had to put our great dane to sleep before its time because it swallowed a sock and the surgery was going to run 3,000-- more than my parents were willing or able to pay. Why is that?

Well, moving on, moving up... I guess our next stop is a (ugh) mini-van. But until then, it's back to the red intrepid for us... we're gonna run that thing into the ground and i will have NO regrets about that. Evil red intrepid.

just kidding. Cars aren't people.