I did not expect, when I got into my car to drive home this morning, that my ride home would be quite so suspenseful, or that it would come to an end not at home but, instead, at a local auto repair shop.
The news that it would need a new radiator was, by that point, not surprising, but I hadn’t expected it would also need a new catalytic converter and several other pricey parts that I didn’t really hear because by the time he got to Page 2 of the list it had all become a kind of dull, undifferentiated buzzing noise. I know the list didn’t include struts or emissions sensors, because I just bought those two months ago. And it couldn’t have included the battery or alternator, because those are only three months old.
After a bit of negotiation, we settled on a figure somewhat smaller than what a new radiator would have cost. That figure is what I agreed to sell the car for to Sam. Sam is the oldest mechanic there and, as such, one of the few people I could sell that car to with a clean conscience at this point.
Treat it kindly, Sam, it served me well for almost 12 years.
That car, a ’96 Honda Civic, went more than 230,000 miles before maintenance and repair even started to become an issue. I could have driven it to the Moon but, alas, it wouldn’t have made it back.
It turns out to have been the Lou Gehrig of automobiles — performing spectacularly day after day, year after year for longer than any previous car I’d ever owned. And then, suddenly, a steep and irreversible final decline.
After all those years and all those miles, I can’t complain. I consider my self (… self … self) the luckiest …
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