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Golden Inspirations |
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" The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
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Home  Featured Columnists Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant The Accidental Comic No Trade Ins
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No Trade-Ins
 My 1994 Honda Accord has 201,937 miles on it today. It reached the magic 200,000 milestone the same week I rolled from my forties to my fifties. I tried to synchronize things so that both momentous events happened at once, but my mother-in-law fell the week before and had to be escorted to the doctor.
I am her taxi service of choice. (By the way, the doctor’s diagnosis was: “She’s lucky she has a large rear end, otherwise she would have broken something.”) See, I knew there were advantages to that extra padding!
When you have an older car, you expect things to go wrong and you live with them. So the engine doesn’t start up as quickly as it used to. It still starts and that’s what really counts. So there’s a huge dent in the driver’s side and the retractable antenna has been snapped off and replaced by a shish-ka-bob stick (try it, it works great). Who cares? What matters is that the car and I are comfortable with each other. I don’t expect perfection from it and it doesn’t glare at me if I spill Dr. Pepper on the seats. A previously un-owned car would never be so forgiving.
I may not get to breathe in new car smell when I open my car door, but I hear it’s toxic anyway. And the smells mine emits are better – wet dogs on their way home from a romp in the park, old rose petals from a bouquet my husband gave me for our anniversary, a hint of citrus from the time that can of frozen OJ jumped out of the grocery bag and hid under the passenger seat until it got hot and exploded… These are familiar and comforting smells. They assure me that I haven’t somehow accidentally gotten into someone else’s car.
Old cars are good role models too. They remind us that even though we’re not as shiny and new as we used to be, our shocks a little worn out and our spark plugs frequently misfire, we should just be happy with what works instead of focusing on what doesn’t. I can still go from zero to sixty in under a minute if I’ve had both a steaming shower and a steaming cup of good coffee. My brakes still work fine too – when I realize I’m about to roll over the edge, I can stop on a half dollar. All my gears are functional, even if I do spend a little more time in neutral than I did when I was younger.
Here’s the best part: just because it’s a little dented and scratched on the outside, doesn’t mean that the inside isn’t in high demand. I know this because my car was stolen a few months ago (luckily, I got it back intact.) The police said that it didn’t matter that I have nine layers of bumperstickers on my bumper or that bees have been committing suicide against the back window for over a decade and resting in piece in place. Because thieves still want what’s under the hood. I think my car and I have that in common.
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