Zippy's Demise

Eleven years ago we bought a 4-yr-old Corolla. She already had 122,000 miles on her. And she had an irreparable dent in her back bumper. She had been sitting on the used-car lot for a while because nobody wanted her with that not-too-big dent. So we got her for a very good price. My dad thought we made a bad decision, buying a car with a dent. But she was good to us. She lasted many years. I don't think we fixed anything for the first 7-8 years we owned her; we just kept up with periodic maintenance.

Her brakes failed on Monday. Repairing her would have been manageable, except that her fuel lines were about rusted through too. The mechanic told me that, by law, he wasn't supposed to let me drive her home because the brakes were in that bad of shape. He told me that I didn't need to hurry to get her off his lot; a few days would be fine. Hey, I don't move too fast or think too quickly! I thought "a few days" was plenty fast. I found a junk dealer who would pay us for the car, instead of just having her towed away for nothing, or given to one of those places that takes donated vehicles. Because of symposium this week, I couldn't sit on the decision. And I didn't want to inconvenience our mechanic by leaving her sit on his lot for the whole week. So I sold her on Wednesday. It was heart-breaking. She had gone over 300,000 miles. She was the only car I ever had that had a name.

We're not sure whether to start car-shopping to replace her. We are inclined at this point to manage with the cars we have. So now it's time to get serious about toughening up my leg muscles so that I will be able to go UP and down and UP and down the local hills when we bike to town and back. We'll also need to buy another bike or two, and some helmets. I think the loss of Zippy is going to force us into more exercise, which will be good in the long run, but right now will be a bit of a strain on our time.