Out to Pasture

Last night we traded in my old Hyundai (a.k.a. the "nut mobile," named so because when my mom was driving it while I had a broken leg, she insisted it was like getting into a walnut) for a different car. It had 74,000 miles on it after eight years of driving.

The nut was my first adult purchase, that purchase that required me to learn a minimum of financial responsibility. It was touch and go for awhile early in my ownership, a scenario I attribute to my own misunderstandings and misplaced priorities (it didn't help that I was waiting tables, and often came home with cash - cash which I stored in my dresser drawer. What good accounting!). The situation with me and my car turned around in the middle of my senior year of college, when I got a "real" job at an architecture firm doing administrative stuff and marketing stuff. When I finally paid it off in 2004 - and the title came in the mail - it was one of the proudest days of my life.

Once I got over the financial responsibility and started making my car payments with regularity, I started to deal with the maintenance. In the nut, this was always extraordinary. At one point, the chassis had to be lifted off of the guts because the gas line somehow was rubbing against the steering column, and gas was leaking in the inside of my car. Last year we had major battery drama, and occasionally the check engine light would come on. Nothing seemed to be wrong with the engine, but I would get a little electrical excitement now and then. The AIR BAG light stayed on for the last three years. Recently, when you'd put the car in reverse it would generate this really low whine.

Besides all this weirdness, though, the car was fabulous - getting me back and forth from Regis to the Seminary, driving from stem to stern - especially when I started adjuncting. One of the most exciting days of my adult life happened just last summer when I could finally drive the nut again after having a broken leg (I think it took about two months). There was an odd tingling sensation in my foot and leg for the first week - kind of like my leg was asleep, but somehow still working ... hard to explain - but being able to put the clutch in was pretty exciting.

So last night, we traded it in. We were walking out to the new car and the nut already had a sign on it to sell. It made me just a little sad, but it was a good car and did a good job. Hopefully it is going to its reward.

Whatever that might be for old cars.