11,608 days

Off and on over the last year I've alluded to having had troubles with my old car (see for example here and here), culminating in buying a new car almost two months ago (see here). The last step in the process, naturally, was then to get rid of the old one. Well I dithered for a while, and inquired in a desultory way about the prospects for donating it to charity. Then I went online and found some outfit that will buy old junker cars from you. I'm sure the rates amount to theft, but they do all the work and come pick them up ... and you can set it up by clicking a few buttons on a website. Convenience wins out. So I made the arrangements yesterday, and the guy came today with a tow truck to drag it away -- something like 11 months after I started having these troubles.

I was shot last night. Obviously after everything else this last step was a triviality, but it felt huge. But I didn't realize how huge it felt until I decided to go out and get some groceries I didn't need; I drove to the store, walked across the parking lot ... and realized I had left my wallet at home. With all my money and my driver's license. In other words, I wasn't thinking at all. So I drove home (much more carefully!) and gave up on the groceries.

I've had this kind of total brain-fade before, and it often comes when I have just finished some huge and emotionally-draining project. So realizing that it had just happened again made me step back and put this "last step" in a little more perspective. This car was the last big artifact from my married life ... supposing you don't count the boys, of course. It was the first new car that Wife and I bought together -- in fact, it was the first really big purchase of any kind that we made together. At the time we had been married just a little over three years. And it stuck with us, or we stuck with it, ever after. It was a 1988 Honda Civic DX four-door sedan. It ran like a dream (well, until it didn't) and had the tightest turning circles of any car it has ever been my pleasure to drive. Manual transmission, manual steering, manual windows (Wife told the car dealer, "For $2000 [the difference in price] I can roll down my own windows"), manual locks. And all it needed was regular maintenance -- not that it ever got that from me at all reliably, but still. Of course by the time it reached 31 years old the fabric that covered the seats had split in a bunch of places; there was a patch of rust slowly growing on the back near the gas cap; the air conditioning had been out of order for over ten years; and the 268,000 miles it had traveled were starting to leave signs in basic wear and tear. But it was still a wonderful car.

Then it started having troubles that I couldn't get fixed because the mechanic couldn't get parts any more. It started overheating uncontrollably. And so I borrowed other cars (from Wife, from Mother) to get around, in the process letting this one sit long enough that the battery died. And after a while I gave up any hope of ever getting it repaired. I bought a new one, and today sold the old one to a junkyard for $80.

But I did the math to find out how long we'd owned it. And it came to 11,608 days -- almost 32 years. In fact, when I compare that number to the 12,004 days that the marriage itself lasted, the comparison is interesting. 12004 - 11608 = 396 = 365 + 31. The marriage itself lasted only a year and a month -- thirteen months -- longer than the ownership of this car, although of course they were offset by a bit. [And even that calculation counts as part of the marriage those years between when I moved out of the house and when we finalized the agreement.]

But I think that's why it felt like such a big deal. It's really been a very long time.

My next door neighbor texted me this afternoon, "Wow. The Little Honda That Could has left its forever parking space. Fare thee well old friend." It was sweet and I thanked her.

It was the right thing to do. It had to happen. And 31 years is a fantastic run for a car that's in daily use. But I'm still a little sad.