Goodbye Great Car
It was Friday, September 5, 2003 around 10:13 p.m. The MTV Video Music Awards were on TV and all was happy. The apartment windows were slightly open to let the evening breeze roll through the living room. Then it happened.
The sound of someone gunning their accelerator to make a changing stoplight was followed by the sound of eight tires all squealing. The cacophony was capped off with a loud banging pop that is tantamount to collisions. Glass broke, more banging crashes sounded off and then all was silent except for Kelly Osborne's blathering about Duran Duran coming from the TV.
"That didn't sound so good," I mumbled. Being human, I of course had to look out and see what happened, especially considering someone might be hurt and the authorities probably needed calling. I saw one car with almost no front end sitting in the intersection that holds one corner of our apartment building.
"What happened?" asked LoLo without pulling her eyes from MTV.
"Looks like a couple of cars collided and luckily, Sarge was totally missed." I replied, thankful that my beloved car was sitting a good thirty feet from where the second car landed well down our street. I saw a young kid, probably around 19 get out of the second car and rub his head while he walked back toward the intersection where an older man got out of his rumpled Subaru.
"Anyone hurt?" I shouted down from three floors up.
"No! We're okay!" shouted the youth back up. I figured I may as well go down and make sure that the "collisioneers" and Sarge were really okay. As I made my way down stairs, I thought to myself how just this morning I was thinking how thankful I was for Sarge the 1992 Nissan Pathfinder that I had bought from my good friend, Joel. I paid $5000 for Sarge back in the summer of 2000. I was a dash worried about buying a used car from a friend, especially one with a lot of miles on it.
It turns out, I needn't have worried because Sarge gave me three years of spotless and exemplary service for everything from grocery store trips to full on camping down the Pacific Coast and snowboarding trips to Tahoe. Sarge dutifully hauled as much as he could from Seattle to San Francsico when I moved and he even endured the embarassment of several parking tickets until I got the hang of "street cleaning" in this city. He four-wheeled on a Northern California beach and he plowed through deep snow on several occaisions. He was a trooper, a reliable friend and an incredible bargain.
Oddly enough, I had just seen Joel again this year as he swung through the Bay Area during a leave of absence from work. Over dinner, I couldn't help but thank him again for such a great deal on such an incredible car. I felt like I probably even owed him more money since Sarge had treated me so well.
As I popped out of our stairwell and onto Steiner Street, I made my way out to where I could see the wreckage more closely. Wow...the second car was really creamed, including a missing bummer, half a trunk, etc. As I walked toward the intersection, I neared Sarge and felt a twinge as I saw his entire left side crumpled, smashed, scratched, demolished. The two doors were bent to the degree that you could see into the car through the tops of them. My front left tire was tilted as if it was leaning against a wall. My left rear tire was sliced and the wheel was mangled on one edge. Sarge was toast. I couldn't even get into the driver's door since the handle was missing. Not to mention he was undrivable because the running board was bent right into the tire surfaces on the front and rear.
Bummer.
Next step, dealing with insurance. It turns out that even though I had a WHOLE car in perfectly good condition, it would cost more to fix a few pieces on it than the car was worth. It doesn't make sense. If I have to get two new doors, a new front panel and a new rear panel the insurance company won't do it. Instead, they just give me a check for what the car is worth on the market. How much does that suck eggs? I'm sitting in my apartment when Mario Andretti decides to run a yellow/red light and smash my car and now I get a check from the insurance company and am carless...
So, today it was with great sadness that as I started working on my daily to-do list, I peered out the window as the salvage company tow-truck loaded up Sarge. I raced down with the dogs and my camera to take one last shot of one of my favorite all-time cars. I patted him on the tire as he proudly rode off on the flatbed, like a combat soldier being carried off the field of battle on a stretcher.
A single tear of sadness welled up in my left eye and I wiped it clear with the back of my hand before it drizzled down my cheek. It's time to be brave and face the world without the strength and confidence of Sarge. It's time to let go and move on. I think back to other cars and they just dont quite touch me the way Sarge did. Worst of all, as I write this, I realize that there's a small polaroid of AxL on Christmas Day stuck to the dashboard plastic. In my sadness, I forgot to pluck it off.
It's a little too hard to even begin thinking about the next car in my life. Like the time one should take off between relationships or losing pets, I think I need a little time without a car. I'm just not ready.
Goodbye, Sarge. Thanks for the memories and may they lay you gently to rest.