A moment of silence for Chicken’s 2001 Chevy Impala, everybody.
She’s dead, Jim.
Got a call from Chicken, right as I wrapped up my morning walk–the car had simply ceased to operate. There was the sound of rocks, and car no-go.
I went to pick her up form a less-than-savory stretch of Manzanita Blvd, where she sat in her pajamas after dropping her brother off to work, because, I guess, no good deed goes unpunished.
By now we knew the drill– have it towed to the Car Czar, because they treat you decent there, and go Valentines shopping at Target while we wait for the diagnosis.
Well, the diagnosis was the transmission had an aneurism and would cost $4,400 to fix. Somebody run me the bluebook on a 2001 Chevy Impala on a non-stock body and all new brakes, cause I think it’s worth about half that.
Yeah. Break out the horn and play taps– that’s all she wrote.
Chicken was depressed as fuck–and I spent the day trying to cheer her up. Chocolate, new sweats (so she could stop wandering around in her pajamas), and some concoction from Starbucks that I got an accidental sip from and wanted badly to hurl– none of it worked.
She called my dad, who said, “So, I’m 70 years old–sorry pumpkin, I don’t do that shit anymore.”
“That’s cool–do you have any advice?”
“Is it front wheel drive?”
“Yes.”
“A good funeral service would do it.”
“Yeah. It’s weird. Cars die on me. Dad totals them, Mom just dents them, but they die on me.”
Well, everybody needs a hobby?
She’s a good adult–she was worried about her livelihood and I didn’t blame her.
We came to a solution–I hope it’s one that runs for at least another two years (this car, for all it’s faults, did run for two years, even though it looked like a sock full of rocks by the end) and when I called her father and told him he let out a sigh. He’d been hoping to go to Octoberfest this year with his friends on a sort of package weekend, and he said, “There goes Germany.”
Yeah. We waved to it floating away in the distance. Maybe some other year when I could come? Bring the kids? We’ll hope.
But in the meantime, Chicken still needs to go to her dead car at Car Czar and get all her stuff out of it before having it towed to Pick & Pull, who will give her money.
I told her to swing by the house before she does.
“I’ve still got the pink Krylon from when I thought I was going to have to spray paint over the graffiti. “
“So!”
“So! Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day and it’s PINK PAINT! Spray paint a heart on it with ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ on the hood! It’ll be great!”
“Mom, you are so weird.”
Well, maybe so–but I got my baby to laugh at the end of a really sucktastic day. I’ll call it a win.
And she’d better send me a picture if she actually does it.
