Well, I'm sure it exists. Somewhere, at least. Pieces of her, anyway. Sitting in a lot somewhere as pieces are pulled off, re-sold, re-distributed until there's not much left but a shell.
It is a sad, depressing ending for such a beautiful, powerful vehicle, isn't it?
These are the last photos I have of her, taken on December 31 when the U Pull It truck came to haul her away, writing me a check on the spot for $300. It was more than I was expecting them to offer and more than the scrap metal value of the car (we checked), even though aside from the ignition, that car was far from scrap.
Some of you may be confused, especially any new readers I may have here -- this was my car. My first real car -- paid off, name on the title, insured, and well taken-care-of as much as I reasonably could afford. I bought this car in 2011 for the last $500 of my 2010 tax return when I posted an ad on Craigslist in Newton, Kansas, asking if anyone had a car that would work as a daily driver on trips between Newton and Wichita, had to be an automatic transmission (while I can drive stick, I have not done so in over fifteen years) in decent mechanical shape, and I had $500 to offer. I was contacted by the wife of a family there in town a few miles from my house, who said she had a Monte Carlo that had been in storage for over two years, but her husband had taken it out, fixed it up, and had driven it back from Kansas City (so she knew it was in decent shape).
I made an appointment and went over that afternoon, taking the car for a test drive. I really liked it. My ex, who I was with at the time, told me I probably wasn't going to get a better deal for $500 on something that would actually run and be worth owning, so I bought the car then and there, drove it the two or three miles to get it home, and put plates/insurance on it over the course of the next few days, and customized it to make it my own in the weeks afterwards -- I put two Decepticon stickers on it (one large one on the hood, and a second smaller one on the back glass) as well as an Imperial logo on the opposite side of the back glass, scraping off the obnoxious "Cowgirl Up" sticker that was there when I bought the car.
Mind you, the car wasn't flawless. It'd had at least two previous owners, if not more -- I know this because I purchased it from one of them, and there was a worn-out "Payless Auto Sales, Emporia KS" decal on the trunk, so it was well-used. When I bought it, it had 217,000 miles on it. It had two bad spark plugs and one bad plug wire. The "Service Engine Soon" and "Low Coolant" lights rarely, if ever, went off. The anti-lock brake controller was burned out, so the car itself had normal brakes (something which I absolutely loved, compared to the anti-lock brakes in Daisy's car). It liked to burn off, and occasionally leak, oil -- sometimes to the tune of a quart every three weeks or so. In the hot Kansas summers, the thermostat in the car would get stuck, and it would leak coolant out of the overflow valve onto the pavement (or, just like the oil, slowly burn it off). The radio didn't work for 90% of the time I had the car. The power windows did work (at least the motors for them did), but both windows were off-track. The power locks, while they worked flawlessly, could never be used as I didn't have a door key for the car -- just a key for the ignition. The inside driver-side door handle was broken and would not open the door. The air conditioner, though it did blow cool air, needed a freon recharge when I bought the car, and stopped blowing cool air completely after the first month or two I owned and drove the car. These were just a handful of the small problems the car had, and as you can see, most of them are cosmetic or did not affect the car's daily-driver status, which I put it into almost immediately after purchase.
The following April, the serpentine belt and belt tensioner blew out on me while driving home from work on the interstate at 10:30 PM. That was about $350 to fix, and when it blew out my back tires were dangerously dryrotted as well, so I had those replaced also. That fall, during the middle of the semester, the remaining spark plugs (all but one) blew out, dropping my gas mileage to about eight miles per gallon and slowing the car's acceleration to a crawl -- yet it still ran. I had to drive it like that for a few days before I could get it fixed, as I couldn't just up and not drive back and forth to/from school -- my schedule was hectic. That was another $1100 fix (thank you, student loan money), but the mechanics were able to get the radio working again (for a while; it stopped working again shortly before I moved up here) as well. After that, the car never needed any further service until about two months ago when I replaced the other tires and got another oil change. I made 50-mile-plus round trips in it three to four days a week to teach and attend my classes when I was in grad school, and continued that trend afterwards when I continued to teach for another year. Even in the hottest weather or most bitter cold, the car fired up every time, shifted smoothly, accelerated and decelerated wonderfully, and gave me about 20-22 miles per gallon. Yes, she was occasionally old and whiny. Yes, she did occasionally stall out on me when I pulled into a parking space or if it was muggy/humid and I was in stop-and-go traffic, but even with all of her flaws otherwise, she was a very good car.
I drove the car up here to Omaha from Newton the day after my teaching job had ended in May, in order to move it up here without having to worry about towing it behind a U-Haul. I was quite worried that it would blow a major part on the trip, that driving the car for over five hours straight with the only stops being for gas would finally kill it. It did not; the car gave me a record 23-25 miles per gallon (based on my rough estimates then) and purred like a kitten the entire time, driving as if it were new. It didn't even get close to hot/overheating until I was within a few miles of the parents' house in stop-and-go stoplight rush hour traffic, when it started to warm up a little. Air-cooled, naturally-aspirated engine; can't do much about that when there's no air rushing through it.
I registered the car in Nebraska shortly after the wedding, in June. The Kansas license plate I had on it since 2011 was removed, washed off very well, and hung on the wall in our living room as a reminded of not only the independence that car had given me, but as a symbol of knowing my roots, and knowing all of the places that plate had gone while attached to the back of the car.
Shortly thereafter, during my two weeks of training for my current job, someone broke into the car in our apartment parking lot and stole my old, near-useless GPS out of it. They tried to rip out my (by then) non-working stereo as well, though they weren't able to get it out. I was pissed off as the car is about ten yards from the front door of our building in a relatively well-lit parking lot. No further damage was done, of course, and because of that I didn't really care as much as most people might.
Then, of course, the week before Thanksgiving, the car got broken into in our parking lot at work. In doing so, the thieves not only successfully stole the non-working radio, but tore up the rest of the inside of the car, including bashing open my glove box, destroying the interior lights/controls/rearview mirror, and (the most egregious of all) tearing out my ignition in an attempt to steal the vehicle. Once the wire was cut on the ignition switch, the car wasn't going anywhere as that -- and its key -- is the anti-theft system. As I mentioned when it happened, the first part that they cut off was the key-reader system, as the key has a chip in it. See below:
Without the car's ability to read that security chip, it will not start no matter what.
That key is also the only actual piece of the car I have left. It now hangs on the wall in the living room under the car's Kansas license plate as a shrine to my lost baby.
Anyway.
With the car rendered undriveable, the next day I had it towed back to our apartment complex, duct-taped the glove box shut so that the light inside wouldn't stay on and drain the battery, and there it sat. For over a month. In that time we got a quote from the best steering column mechanic in town (as the damage was so extensive the entire column and wheel would have to be replaced to render the car driveable again), and the quote was between $300 and $500. The steering column, ignition, and wheel were easy enough to fix and parts were readily available for them, but the problem was that because of that car's security key (again, see above), if we couldn't find a steering column and ignition switch with its own key as well, the car would have to be completely re-keyed -- adding another $150 or so to the repair total.
Even though this car was wonderful, and I viewed it as an extension of myself or like my child, I just couldn't do it. We had the money; we have a savings account for emergencies or unforeseen expenses, but it just wasn't worth it. I paid $500 for the car to begin with, and in the years I owned her, taking care of her cost me another two grand or so just to keep her running and safely on the road. And there was no guarantee that if I paid that much and fixed the car up, the same sort of break in wouldn't happen again or that another major, expensive part (like the transmission, fuel pump, etc) wouldn't blow out the next day, week, or month. I made the very emotional decision to let it go and to sell it for, basically, whatever I could get out of it. I put in for quotes from U Pull It twice, and even paid a month's worth of insurance on it when it was sitting in the parking lot undriveable, but it was Daisy who finally arranged the car's pick up from them on the 30th, while I was at work. On the afternoon of the 31st, in the bitter cold, they came to take away my baby, winching her up onto the flatbed truck you see in the pictures at the top of the page, and hauling her away.
I couldn't watch as they took the car out of the parking lot -- it was bad enough watching the guy pull her up onto the truck, forcefully. He asked me if I had the keys to the car, and I replied I did, but it wouldn't do him any good. I wanted to keep the key anyhow, because (again) it's the only piece of the car I have left. It's like cutting a lock of hair off your dead child to keep forever. At least, it is in my mind.
A few days ago I called Geico to cancel the insurance on the car, since (obviously) I'm not going to keep it ongoing. It was done over the phone in about five minutes, and I was informed that within fourteen days, I'd get a refund check for the amount of insurance I'd paid on but had not used (since I'd re-upped it last month). Said refund is something like $28; I don't remember the exact amount.
The Nebraska plates stayed on the car and went with her; they're useless now anyway, and as I may not have another car before June anyhow (when I'd renew them), it's not like I'd bother to transfer them or to try to get a refund on my registration. It's not worth it. I've also not yet deposited the $300 check from U Pull It that they gave me for the car. It'll go directly into our savings account anyway, because I would somehow, for some reason, be really angry with myself if I put it into our normal bank account and the money for my car went to paying bills or getting groceries.
So, what are our next steps here? Well...
The plan is to pay down all of our credit card bills over the next few months, enough to where we would qualify for a (hopefully small) low interest auto loan, and then to get me a car that's newer and more reliable, safer and possibly big enough to use for child transport (as we will, eventually, have children). That narrows down my selections quite a bit, but I've made it a point to tell Daisy that even though I will take every suggestion and recommendation into consideration, ultimately I and I alone will be the one who selects my next vehicle -- whatever it ends up being. From a security and reliability standpoint, basically anything newer with doors that lock, windows that work, and a good heater is a step up from the Monte Carlo. From a stylistic standpoint, it will be a tough car to beat -- and Daisy knows that as well. That car was basically a vehicular version of me: heavy, old, somewhat dirty and broken in places, covered in nerdy designs, but a workhorse with a heart of gold and a fast engine, always ready for the next challenge. It's going to be very difficult for me to find another vehicle with that much... soul.
So that's where we stand now. I've been working on this post for a few days now, trying to get it right, trying to fill in all of the gaps and make it a fitting tribute. We can resume our normal blogs now, as we did before. And I will be sure to keep everyone updated on my car hunt.
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