No this is not a story about a car. It’s about life. So don’t be put off by the weird title or ugly picture…read on.
Learn to do things yourself (and the value of friends)
When you own a superannuated (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superannuated) car, that’s right, it’s a real word — and it’s closer to the junkyard than your driveway; and yes, it’s bad enough that no one is going to be taking it in trade; and yes, it’s doubtful that the parts will bring value, that it’s going straight into one of those pitiless crushing machines — well the last thing you want is to drop any significant assets into fixing the growing and inevitable list of problems. What you need to do is get new skills from the Maharishi of all knowledge — YouTube.
Instead of paying for oil changes and routine maintenance, you go online and learn how to do it yourself. Recently my 2000 Lexus RX300 with 300,000 plus miles, started making the most appalling screeching noise — the sound of brake-pads, or lack thereof, scraping against rotors instead of stopping the car as you envision it to do. It was then that I faced my fear of screwing something up and went to the local AutoZone to see what I needed to put on brake pads myself. Now I don’t think you realize the enormity of the risk I was taking, or the gravity of my situation. The potential for humiliation was palpable. I am not what you would call a “handy” person. I once failed to put up a towel rack. That’s not a joke and I’m not taking artistic license here. There are several patched drill holes and a conspicuously missing towel rack in my bathroom to prove it. My wife knows this, so do all the members of my family. So, leaving a car, tireless, up on a jack in our driveway for weeks on end or having to call a tow-truck to haul it away was a real possibility that I could not face. Nor did I want to see the sad and disappointed looks from my family after yet another botched repair job.
Nevertheless, twenty minutes and eighty dollars later, I was standing next to my car, shopping bag in hand, toolbox at my feet, ready to try something new. I didn’t get far. I couldn’t even get the lug nuts off. As I thought back on it, the last time I had work done on my car I was pretty sure I saw the Hulk twisting those things on. At one point I was standing on the lug wrench and bouncing up and down with not so much as the tiniest of movement. So I called a friend of mine who used to work at an auto shop and solicited his assistance. By that I mean I asked if he could do it while I watched. He had something I didn’t have, and I mean more than skills and confidence — he had a simple tool, a length of pipe that fits over the lug wrench, that gave enough leverage to get the job done. An hour later, I had new brakes. I guess the Beatles were right after all, you do get by with a little help from your friends.
It’s mine, not someone else’s
I’ve never understood the appeal or even the concept of leasing a car. It seems to me like it would be one long, never-ending Uber ride. I love paying a car off and suddenly having a few hundred dollars left over every month that used to go to a bank or some other financial institution. It feels like you’re actually getting somewhere, that you’re making progress in one small corner of life. That’s all. Sometimes it’s as simple as that.
Great memories
That old car is like a scrapbook of memories to me. One memory is the headrest on the passenger seat. I think back on when Ben was a little guy sitting in his car seat in the back. He always wanted to know what was going on and would say, “I can’t see!” Then I started taking the headrest off and reclining the seat a bit to give him an unobstructed view out the front window. He loved going through construction zones and seeing if the “guys” were working. Naming all the pieces of equipment like earth-movers and bulldozers and going into a state of nirvana if one of them was actually operating.
I remember how Ben would quickly scramble out of his car seat the second I would click off the belt, clambering between the front seats and dropping into the driver side to hold the wheel and pretend to drive.
This was the car my daughter learned to drive with. The first car my wife and I bought together. Not too long ago I took some pictures of my car. The odometer when it hit 300,000 miles. The driver seat. And of course, the passenger headrest. I’m a pretty sentimental guy. I remember my mom telling me that when I was little, I cried when they took away our old refrigerator and replaced it with a new one. I don’t remember that, and I have no idea why I would be attached to a kitchen appliance, but I don’t think my own mother would lie.
Stop worrying and appreciate the fact that it’s still working every day
My old car has issues. My wife can’t drive it because of all the idiosyncrasies that go into operating a car with such a plethora of problems that seem to multiply weekly. I doubt that even 1 in 100 people could start it, keep it running at a stop light, not panic when the thump of the Automatic Brake System sensor goes off, or understand that “thwack” sound is only a slipping transmission band when the car suddenly goes into neutral at 40 miles per hour.
When I pull up next to a sexy new car, I don’t feel the shame that I used to. At one time I would avoid eye contact, and just keep my gaze fixed on the light with the hope that my car wouldn’t stall before it changed. Now I just pop it into neutral, give it a little gas and watch for the opposite light to go red before quickly dropping the shifter back into drive and lurching off to my destination. You see, my car was made to get me somewhere faster than I could get there by walking, running or biking. And it’s more reliable and easier than the minimal mass transit that my little community offers. It’s not sexy, but it’s not all beat up either. I keep it clean and it doesn’t have any rust (well not that you can see anyway). I appreciate it once in a while and let it know by gently patting the steering wheel and thanking it and God that it’s still running. My old car is still doing what it was intended to do. But I doubt that I’ll cry when it gets turned into a gold-colored cube. I’ll appreciate what I had and wait for the day when my new car gets paid off and I get that few hundred dollars back at the end of every month.
