The last time I drove my Mom in this car, I spent an hour cleaning the inside. She wrinkled her nose anyway.
"How old is this car," she asked?
I replied, "1996."
"This car doesn't owe you anything."
Indeed not, but I am sad nevertheless. This is my only real possession that is all mine. Purchased with my 2nd paycheck and a promise to give a portion of 60 more. I earned Jeep from late nights fixing server problems, from "here's something for the meantime" portion of ridiculous dotcom promises, and from "just be glad you have a job in Houston after Enron."
The Jeep lasted me through law school. I drove it 70 miles almost every day. Days which lasted from 5 AM to get the kiddos to school to 10 PM or later. Days which included two and a half hours of commute through eternal construction: debris, potholes, unlit roads, and unforgiving timetables for everyone on the road.
Yeah, its not a Steinbeck novel but it was still hard work, and a dispirting (if inevitable) end. If I was a different sort of person. I would put the car in the garage and then Jason and I would fix it together. Those sorts of people actually still exist and live in Houston, (one of them was in my evening section) and if I had paid more attention to Mr. Bray, I might have been one of those people too. Once Mr. Bray tried to show me how to fix a lawnmower. I got as far as re-drilling the push handle and changing the spark plug. In any case, cars are mostly run by computer sensors now, so the whole romantic idea is somewhat infesable. If you could hook up a controller to the computer in my Jeep, I would go "up up down down" and make it dematerialize and rematerialize behind all those jerks who tailgate at night with their highbeam.
