that new car smell

Well, today, I somehow bought a new car. I was not really expecting to buy today, but I had a salesman that I really liked, and I felt good about the deal. I felt a little bad that I didn't finish reading "Car Buying for Dummies" (see yesterday), but what's done is done.

It is a really pretty car, a Camry, and I am pretty convinced that it will get stolen or be affected by some sort of act of God tonight. It's pretty much too nice to ever drive. I have to pay for it forever. Other than that, I feel really great about it.

So, now, to say goodbye to my old car, which is sleeping tonight in its new home at the dealership, I present, A Requiem for the Old Avalon....
The Avalon and I came together in the summer before my senior year of college. I didn't want a new car, but unfortunately my younger brother crashed my old Camry while I was studying abroad. Everyone told me that he was lucky to be alive, but I was not happy about losing my old faithful car. Dad and I went down to South Carolina to car-shop (car shopping is about the only thing that South Carolina is good for). We found this Avalon, a '96 with incredibly low mileage, and I think I had a mini-nervous breakdown but decided to go for it. The car had just come on the lot the day before, so we were taking a risk, but Dad haggled to a price that was good (I remember being mortified).

Soon after buying the car, I discovered that it smoked every time I started it. Something with the valves, and people told me it would be too expensive to fix so I've been dealing with that for the last four years. Off the Avalon went to college (it still has the parking sticker from the Emory garage). I don't think anything too notable happened to it there.

When I went to Seattle, I went by myself, and my parents shipped the car out to me later. That was cheaper than driving it and paying for hotels and gas and the like. My old apartment had a garage and pretty soon after the car arrived, I hit the side of the garage and knocked the drivers side mirror off. I think that's where one of my first paychecks went.

In 2005, I went to Spokane, and on the way back, this giant rock hit my windshield and cracked it. What a fond way to remember that trip everytime I got in my car

Then I had the enormous ordeal of trying to register the car in Washington. I couldn't find all the forms I needed and I couldn't find any evidence that we'd paid any tax on the car and frankly I'm not quite sure that I swung that legally.

Sometime between November 2005 and the first few months of 2006, we had torrential rains and the car flooded. Maybe six inches of standing water in the trunk. It molded in the interior. The place that I took to get it fixed completely screwed me over and the car has never been the same, particularly in the arena of smell, ever since.

This year, the dealership told me they could fix that smoking-everytime-it-starts thing. Well, they couldn't. And it only took a few months and a lot of money to figure out they couldn't. And the "check engine" light has been on ever since.

I'm sure I'll think of more. What I'm trying to get across in my requiem is, good riddance, you stupid car. I am not going to miss you at all. Me and my new pretty pretty car are going to be so happy without you, provided it does not get stolen tonight.