dear wally 62 car selling

Dear Wally #62 Getting Rid of an Old Friend

Dear Wally: I am getting rid of my car and I’m starting to get a little emotional about it. It has been a loyal member of the family. Yet here I am just kicking it to the curb. Should I feel bad? (I do). Or should I just get over it and if so, how.
-Confused and emotionally vulnerable in Olivebridge

Dear Confused-
I think you are right to be conflicted. I do not specialize in auto attachment grief counseling, but I know how you feel. We make deep bonds to inanimate objects in our life and that’s part of the human condition. I’d say it’s what separates us from the monkeys, but I think if they had cars that they lived in (and flung poop at), they’d be equally remorseful when they surrendered them to the viney jungle growth. These feelings you are having mean you have compassion and empathy—and that’s a good thing. If you can fall in love with a steel fender then trust me, the world would be a better place with more people like you.
My own mother, for example, used to put aspirin in the gas tank when her car backfired. She’d also smear Neosporin on the hood’s rust spots. That’s love. (I think). If you actually end up giving your car a name, assigning a gender and such, the relationship will always end in heartbreak. Except for those freaks who drive their VW bugs 1.2 million miles, we tend to outlive our cars, as we do our parents once and our pets many times over. In this way, it’s a lifetime of set ups for loss, but, happily, only after a fecund run of big love.
I recently sold my once new car (aren’t they all…) because it had 170k miles and the heater wasn’t working (to list just one of several multi thousand dollar fixes that wouldn’t be happening on my shift). I sold it to a used car dealer in Florida where they don’t care about the heaters. I felt a pang of seller’s remorse—This car had been reliable and safe- it carried my newborn daughter for the first time and countless tons of lumber. It then carried itself on the 1500 mile Bataan death march (AKA Rt 95 south) to its own grave, as far as I was concerned. Like Moose, my once bounding, then aged, rabbit-chasing, loyal, yellow lab who has no idea that he is being taken on a one way trip to the vet. (Don’t worry Moose, they got lots of rabbits in Heaven…).
I stripped the car of every last personal artifact that final day in the sunny, dealer parking lot and it felt like a cheap, rushed exit for parting, 8 year long friends. It was sad like the Giving Tree and Cats and the Cradle is sad. As my buddy said earlier, those car seats have a lot of you in them, and not just the smell. Lots of good times.
Cars are not just vehicles for people, they are vehicles for memories and dreams, which if you care to allow them, can be precious things. Just as they can be, if you are neither careful nor lucky, fragile and fleeting. They mark the quick passage of time, which for the sensitive, is never reconciled without a few tears.
I’ll confess I was a little misty as I looked at it proudly waiting for me to change my mind, get back in, drive away and write the scary experience off as a one-time moment of weak indiscretion-- A regretful Michael Jacksonian balcony dangle. That transactional retreat didn’t happen, of course. And to the yawning, unamused used car dealer with work to do, a heavy gold neck medallion and waning patience for the likes of me, dozens of deals like this happen each day. There simply is no room for sentimental poofs in the car business.
We tend to get attached to things (and people) that help define us, just as we get attached to ourselves and our mannerisms. I don’t mean in a narcissistic way, but in a grounding, channel-marking kind of way. This connection happens most prominently with family members and school friends and summer camp friends etc. They are a prism into our own being and they tag clicks in ink along our personal, spiritual timelines and keep it real. Because they know so much about us, we tend to want to hold them close, lest we forget or lose track or feel alone. Cars, it seems, are no exception, especially if they are bequeathed.
I left my buggy with a full tank of gas. I doubt that often happens just as I doubt folks return rental cars filled with super unleaded. It felt dignified in the face of an otherwise utilitarian decision.
My consolation was that the dealer told me (while he was cooly cleaning the underside of his nails) that my car was going to be immediately auctioned off and shipped to a Caribbean island to live out its salad days.
“Really?” I perked up. “No more cold New England winters? No more road salt where the sun don’t shine?”
“Nope.”
“So I’m kinda sending it off to easy street to enjoy its golden years?”
“Yup.”
“Like Moose chasing rabbits in Heaven?”
“Huh? Whatever, son.”
So, Confused, give the old girl a final pat on the fender and thanks for a job well done. Then celebrate the relationship, tell yourself the car is retiring to the tropics (we all should be so lucky!!) and move on to the sweet sassafras smell of neeeeeeeewwwwwwwww carrrrrrrrrrr! (And say it like you just won it on a game show!).
Hope this helped.
-Wally
Got a question for our advice columnist or trying to get rid of an excellent 4wd used car for free? Contact him at cwn4@aol.com