Terami.com Blog

Over this past weekend, we took my old car to Carmax and left him there. I was dreading the process because I am one of those people who gets attached to inanimate objects. It was really sad for me, though I put on a brave face.

In the late 70s, my parents bought a Volvo. It was a splurge of impressive proportions - but they wanted their family to be in the safest car on the market. This was before the California lemon law - which will allow you to trade in a bad car if your maintenance record fits a certain repetitive criteria - and that car was a lemon.

My whole adult life, I've been afraid of buying another lemon - which is how badly scarred my childhood was from the Volvo. Still, I remember sitting in the back seat as we were driving to the dealership to buy a new car and kissing the upholstry, in order for the car to know it was loved (it wasn't) and that we didn't hate it (we did). In the end, my parents bought a new car when I was away at a friend's birthday party. They dropped me off in a Volvo, they picked me up in a Mazda.

As I was cleaning out the Jetta on Sunday, I was talking to him. "Kermit," I said - because he was green, and that was his name, "...Kermit, I love you. You were good and I'm sorry you got so old and tired. Thank you for saving my life in September."

Kevin came outside.

"What's going on?"

"Just saying goodbye."

"To the car?"

"Yep."

"Yeah. Ok."

Then he gave me that look that says - We're NEVER getting a dog. Or a cat. Or a rabbit. Or even a pet slug. Dear lord, woman. Go watch some Oprah and let it all out.

It's an active part of my life - reminding myself to not get emotional about objects. When we got rid of the Kurzweil, it was the same issue. And when the Salvation Army came to pick up my grandmother's love seat that we didn't have room for (and was hideous) I couldn't let them take it. I made them take Kevin's thrift shop loveseat instead. I reached an all-time low this weekend when I couldn't donate the coffee mug rack to the thrift shop - because it was Yia Yia's...and I used to have hot cocoa at her house, using mugs that were draped on that rack.

These are some of my issues. I miss my rotten Jetta and am trying not to imagine him in a salvage yard. My only hope is that time will heal this wound and that the angel of automobiles will deliver his soul.