Nerve Endings Firing Away

I lost a dear friend last week. A friend that had faithfully been with me for the past four years and stood by me during my darkest moments. She was around when no one else was and we spent many special moments wandering all over town together. The fact that I am blogging about her loss almost a week later is a reflection on my declined blogging proclivities rather than my love for her company. And I even saw her with someone else yesterday afternoon and probably she didn’t notice me but I still couldn’t help smiling as I drove past.

I am talking about my much-loved Toyota Tercel whom I finally let go this past week. She served me fine for the past four years and was my first vehicle in this new world. Greenhouse gases and all, your car can be your best friend. It lends you an air of independence especially in this sprawling urbanized country so much that once you have it you can never understand how you lived without it. It’s bright blue color was in direct violation of the international rule #26 of manhood and I received much taunts and jabs thanks to my girl-friends (note the hyphen please). But at least three of them passed their driving exams thanks to her silent cooperation. Her color was distinct and although nothing to boast about but evoked exclamations of recognition when traveling friends espied her lookalikes elsewhere. Some even wondered if only Tercels are made in that bright blue color; I guess they are. Finding her in a crowded and sprawling parking lots of big box retailers was never a problem.

That said, it would be wrong to say that she didn’t give me the usual share of problems that comes with a used car. Although I bought her for far less than I had expected to pay for my first car, I spent more than twice that over the years keeping her in shape. I would have spent that much if I had gotten a more recent ride anyway, I told my doubting friends. But was it worth it, you betcha. I made many memorable trips. Three trips from Atlanta to Savannah, one to the southern parts of hick country Georgia to interview for a job, one to Nashville also from Atlanta and the best of all, making the ride all the way from Atlanta to College Station, Texas with all my possessions. This doesn’t even include the countless trips in and around Georgia’s slyvan surroundings and numerous state parks. She withstood the alternate weekend drives to Houston to meet up with Ash.

Thankfully, I didn’t meet my end with her especially with my habit of sleep-driving which thanks to a stern fiancee is hopefully history now. Plenty of my roomies and trust me, I have had many of them in my long stay here have also much to thank her for. Not just for weekend groceries but also for umpteen job interviews that she carried them to. She was involved in only one accident and that too causing the other two cars involved to crash into each other so it was a unfortunate yet lucky break. The no-speeding record however is no indicator of her speeding abilities. I guess she was just lucky enough not to be spotted probably because cops must be snickering and not expecting her to go speeding by especially with all those shiny sports cars and hunky SUVs around her.

As age got to her, parts of her began to fall off, one of which was the fuel cover. And now you may understand the problem of trying to find that extra color from that exact model from more than 10 years back. Even scrounging through the salvage yards of a small Texan town didn’t bring any luck so ultimately had to do with a cool black substitute which went well with the side runners. The last problem was when it unexpectedly had a flat tire in the freezing days a month back. Apparently some bugger let out the air because pumping in air fixed it but that made me realize I had to let go before it was too late. And it sold in double quick time too and got me as much as I expected.

I guess you never can forget your first car and in spite of the troubles it may have given you, you still remember only the pleasant memories. Good bye, dear friend! I hope you are being taken good care of.