September 20, 2011

• Farewell, Red

  Today on my way home from work, I stopped off at the Ford dealer and put a small down payment on a 2012 Ford Fiesta. They don’t have the one I want in stock just yet and they need to get it from another dealer. But, they should have it by to me by Thursday and with that, will start the next 10 years of my car ownership. I’ve determined that I should probably drive a car for 10 years at a time. First was the 1987 ‘Vette, however I only drove that for about two years. Next was the 1992 Ford Aerostar (yeah, a minivan) which was a hand me down from my mom as it turned out she wasn’t going to need it anymore on the account of her being dead. I only drove that though for about a year and a half when I traded it in and bought my 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier.

  I’m thinking back about all of the memories and experiences I’ve had in the Cavalier. My first was just a couple of weeks after I bought it when I crashed into a curb and killed one of the tires. I had less then 500 miles on the car at the time. I had dozed off on the way to work and woke up and got startled by a dump truck and instinctively swerved into the curb, even though I was not in danger of hitting the truck.

  Another memory of that car was back in September of 2003 when me and my boys went to a local bar to play darts. On the way back to the car, my friend had stolen a dart and threw it into the car as we leaving. The dart remained on the floor in my backseat until I cleaned it on Friday in preparation of it being sold. I remember that night well because it was the night after the Cubs won the division and we left the bar and drove the 40 miles to Wrigley Field for no other reason then just to go.

  When I first bought the car, I said that this was the car I would drive to Las Vegas in. While that never happened, I still took several road trips in that car, the first one was when my friend and I went to Cincinnati for a Cubs-Reds game. We left on Friday at 10 am, drove the five hours to get there, watched the roughly three hour game and then made the five hour drive back home right after the game, getting back about 3:30 in the morning. Another trip we took was to Louisville in April of 2003 for the same friend to pick up a ’67 Mustang that he bought. Another trip that I wrote about here on Xanga was in November of 2009 when a friend and I went to Springfield for a couple of days. I got a speeding ticket on the way down there.

  I was in this very same car when I got a phone call in August of 2008 when I had a friend call to tell me the most shocking and devastating news imaginable and raced across town to his house.

  On the lighter side, I only got one fucking blow job in that car. 10 and a half years and only one brief blow job in a parking lot. Hell, I didn’t even finish. The same with the hand jobs I got in that car, I didn’t even finish. Oh well, I guess it’s better off, after all I wouldn’t want to squirt all over and ruin the seats or carpeting.

  I have had quite a few mishaps in that car though; in fact, it is amazing that I haven’t done more damage to it. Outside of the curb incident, there were tons of big potholes I can over, also ran over a parking block, drove over glass bottles (that one just last week), crunched the front end on low driveways, and ran over countless other things that I had no idea what they were. I never, however, hit an animal with that car. Then again, I have it for another day and a half. Who knows what I can hit in that time?

  Overall it has been a good car for me and a part of me will miss it. One thing that I really like about it is that the radio stays on after you turn off the car and doesn’t turn off until you open the door. Also there is an arm rest in between the driver and passenger’s side seats that my new car won’t have. Shit, for 10 years that car has been me. I don’t think I will get emotional with it the way I did when I got rid of the van. That was a little different; it was my mom’s last vehicle and she had only been dead for about 14 months at that point. And I didn’t even cry, just got a little teary eyed.

  I hope the next person takes good care of it and that it takes good care of the next owner. My uncle always said take good care of your car and it will take good care of you. I always tried to do that with this car and I managed to get 124,000 miles and nearly 10 and a half years out of it.

  • 10:32 pm
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