Shortly after my wife and I were married, we had what we called the month of the three “C”s. In that month, we acquired a cat, a car, and a computer. The computer was replaced years ago, the cat is still around here somewhere, but the car we sold yesterday. And if you asked me if I was happy or sad about that, I would not be able to tell you.
When we got the car, it came with a Christian fish symbol stuck to the back of it, but the weird thing about it was that the head was pointing to the right. Generally those fish are pointing left, as if the fish is swimming toward the viewer. The only other fish we have seen with the heads swimming away from you are the Darwin fish with the feet. This led us to the conclusion that the fish on the back of our car was not a good Christian fish at all, but rather the exact opposite of such a thing. A devil fish. Now, back at this point in time my wife was babysitting in the afternoons, and she mentioned to her young charge that we hadn’t named our new car yet, and the kid she was babysitting told her to name it Claudia. I have no idea why, but as we had no better ideas, Claudia Devilfish was born.
Claudia tried to be a good car, but she seemed to attract problems from the get-go. There was the time that the police came to our door to tell us that some drunk guy had driven into every car in our parking lot, including ours. Thank you, drunk guy’s insurance. There were the mysterious vanishing hubcaps. Thank you, local hoodlums. There was the short little pole that I drove into, leaving its mark that remains to this day. Thank you, stupid self.
On the one hand, that car has been nothing but trouble. We’ve replaced the brakes more than once. The transmission is fairly new, since we had to replace that as well. Even the engine is not the original engine. We had to replace the windshield after it cracked, as well as the whole front end after the drunk guy incident. I have blown countless tires, and even ruined one of the actual wheels. The passenger’s side mirror randomly exploded while we were driving down the highway one day. The driver’s seat belt doesn’t buckle. The windshield washer fluid no longer sprays. Depending on the wind, one of the headlights may or may not work. The gas cap has to be pried open with a key in order to fill the tank. In short, the car is a disaster and I can’t believe we’ve kept it this long.
On the other hand, we’ve had the car for over eight years. This car took me back and forth to grad school every day for two years. We brought the cat and the computer home in it. The car carried both of our children home from the hospital after they were born. It has safely ferried us back and forth from DC and Baltimore to Vermont for dozens of holidays. I was sitting in that car the day I found out that my grandmother had died. There are so many memories, and so much life wrapped up in that hunk of metal that it might as well be a member of the family.
I tell myself that it was just a car, but it was our car, and maybe that means something. We may have outgrown it, but I’m glad that we didn’t just scrap it. Claudia is starting a new life now, with a new owner that will love her despite her 200,000 + miles. Claudia, if you are out there, and you have somehow gained sentience and learned to read in the last 24 hours, we miss you, and we hope you’re happy, wherever the road may take you.