I never thought I'd live to be a hundred

[austin_dern]

When I got home yesterday after an adventure worth talking about too there was a message from my father on the counter. Someone I had thought was out of my life wanted back in. It was my mechanics, the folks altogether too distant to which I would take the Sable all the many times it broke down.

I hadn't expected to hear from them again because after the verdict that my car needed $1200 in repairs and I decided there was no sense to that, my father worked out with the shop's owner a deal where I would sign the car over to them, and they would do whatever they liked with it --- fixing and selling, stripping for parts, what have you --- and we'd split whatever the residue of the proceeds were. It would need the new transmission if it were ever to move again, really. But this was discussed the week I was with bunny_hugger, and the plan sounded fine to me, and the week after I got back I called to try telling them that this was fine and go ahead with it. I didn't make contact, though, with the owner, and trusted that he would get the message and get back to me for details like transferring the title.

Well, he never did, and I just assumed that things were puttering along at a relaxed pace. But now they need the space (a friend of the owner's needs to put the trucks of his business somewhere while they cut back operations for the recession) and need my car to go somewhere else. I reiterated the deal that I thought my father had worked out, and he explained that they couldn't strip cars for parts, but he could find a junkyard likely willing to take it. I will have to still pay them for the tow I got, but that was all they wanted, and they weren't going to charge me for two months' storage.

I'm now getting all nostalgic and a bit sad about the decision. After all, despite it all, the transmission repair would have been only a couple of car payments, and I could easily have afforded to get the aircon working too. But I know it would have still had a host of issues small and large (like the occasional surprise moments when the power windows decide they don't need to move for a few days). But it still feels disheartening to have my car going to rot, now. I don't suppose there's any better end for it, really, but I'd still want one.

Trivia: When John McGraw took over management of the New York Giants in July 1902 his contract was the highest in baseball to that time, paying him $11,000 for the year. Source: The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball, Frank Deford.

Currently Reading: The Alien Debt, F M Busby.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

When my Accord died (as in, engine shot) I actually sold it on eBay for $366! I'm glad I didn't pay someone to tow it away. Instead, I got paid and someone towed it away. I felt bad seeing it get towed off, though.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, in this case the towing isn't away from the mechanic. I'd needed it towed to the mechanic because the drive forward failed about three miles away from there, finishing up my experience with the car in the most frustrating fashion possible.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I didn't have to pay for that part when my car died because I am a AAA member and so I get tows for free. I had them tow it into my driveway.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That would have been convenient. I keep coming back to the conclusion I should be a AAA member, considering the car problems I have and my uselessness in fixing them myself, but I somehow never quite translate that into action. I think it may be related to my hand phone issues.

[moxie_man]

Alas, the final fate of the Stealth Lemon has yet to occur. My younger brother is currently driving it. However, if he finds it'll cost too much to keep it on the road, maybe it will meet the same fate as his first car, a '78 Buick Lesabre Electra: Car Smash for Charity...namely his scout troop. On his troop's website under old news, scroll down about a third of the way to July 4, 2007 for his car's obituary and a photo of what was left at the end of the day. They got another couple hundred in scrap for what was left, which would have covered the towing if they hadn't gotten that service donated also. They got so much 'cause this car was built back in the days when they still used "real" sheet metal and cars had chrome-plated steel bumpers. There were 3 ton posted bridges in this state he couldn't legally cross because that car's gross weight was 7,000 lbs. :)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I know it would make me feel better to donate the car to any useful purpose, but I don't even know any organizations in the area (mine or its) that could use it or for what, and the car's now far enough away that I can't relocate it.

Having the car wrecked, though, even for charity ... I don't think I'd feel comfortable with that. Giving it to a sibling would be nice enough except they don't need cars and they don't need a car which needs a transmission replacement even more.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better, you can call it an 'Auto Recycling Center' and not a Junkyard. :)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, I could, but it won't. It also feels like a real defeat having the car come to the end of its life at under 120,000 miles, considering the cars I'd had at dozens of thousands of miles higher than that.

[xiaobaitu.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeyEXt7-0jU

[xiaobaitu.livejournal.com]

And if you want a more maudlin take on it, there's always

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UfsEj7AOGI

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, I couldn't watch that all the way through.

The original short story was rerun in Fantasy and Science Fiction an issue or two back for some reason.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I used to have that lamp, actually, from Ikea. Actually, my father has it now; he uses it as the light in the study, with it positioned so that one can turn it on and get light in the room only by walking the entire length of the room and getting to the far side.