The Lord Gives and Takes Away !

You've all seen obituary pictures and you think, "Wow, that person looks real good - wondered what happened". (Ok, maybe that's just my morbid side) Of course, the family rummaged around scrapbooks, shoeboxes or whatever they could find to locate a "perfect picture" of their loved one. The picture usually doesn't represent the cancer or the disease or the many health problems the individual suffered through before their death.
That brings me to this picture!

The picture above is a representation of my car. It's a 1994 Ford Thunderbird. Now, it's not my ACTUAL car because I've never seen that backdrop before with my car - nor could my car travel that far to that beautiful location anyway!! :) Just like an obituary picture, please don't let this photo confuse you to think, "Well, that's a good-looking car". Let's talk about the health concerns of my T-Bird:

1. The cloth on the drivers side visor is "flaking off" so everytime I use it, I end up in contact lens hell trying to drive down the road with flakes of 10 year cloth in my eye.
2. What's a glovebox? I don't know b/c mine has not opened up for about 5 years.
3. Most cars made after 1990 have an automatic release for your gas tank. Of course with issue # 2 above (where most of those release buttons are located), I have to unlock my trunk every time I get to the fillin' station (just wanted to sound like a hick). That's where the "emergency release" is located.
4. If you want to adjust the electronic seat control, it's no problem in my car. Since it's no longer attached to the car seat, you can just pull out the electronics almost to your lap to make the adjustments. Quite handy but not the most aesthetically pleasing feature.
5. The APPROXIMATE 200,000 miles on the car. I say approximate because at one time the odometer broke for a period of time that I didn't keep track of (oops!). Based on that, I have currently 20,000 miles on that odometer but the old one had 158,000 on it. And the rest of the miles are a mystery.

Well, you get the point. It's one of those unique experiences to drive my car. Whenever someone did drive it besides me or if I left it to do an inspection, it was like I had to have a "Donny's T-Bird Orientation Class" so they could figure everything out.

So, today I'm officially going to say my eulogy to this car. Why? On Friday, I received a call from my local mechanic that said, "Well, the motor doesn't work anymore". Hmmmm - that doesn't sound good. Doesn't a large machine need a motor? Hmmmm. "So, how much?" Now, keep in mind that I recently did a Kelly Blue Book evaluation on my car just for fun and I couldn't get anything about $150 even when I rated the car in "FAIR" condition. Based on my list above, I'm not sure I could accurately say my car is in FAIR condition. Also note that I just spent $1300 to fix the radiator in June. So when my mechanic told me that it would cost $1740 plus tax ... hmmm. What would you do? :)

Honestly I think I'm quite thrilled to say that I may never have to drive that car again. I don't look forward to the car purchasing experience (yuck!), especially given my last experience with looking at our checking account. But the Bible says that "The Lord gives and takes away". Lord, I'm not sure what you are going to "give" me in my new car, but please take this old car away quickly. Good bye T-Bird - visor flakes and all !!!

God bless you all,

SJ