Bye Bye Birdie

Some inevitabilities in my life recently:

• My old, tired car was not able to be saved without investing some serious cash in a new manifold, a new radiator, new brake things, and a bunch of new thingamajigs for which I am unable to account because I have no idea what the fuck they are. News flash: when a car tech tells you that some part of your car is “rotten”, it’s a pretty safe bet it’s no longer safe.
• Driving an unsafe car with our most precious of cargo, That Baby, is not an option. So, we have had to buy a new car, since I am driving to and from work once a week, along with baby-related errands and such. This means that the job that I was doing to bring in a little cash to help us with our debt is now exclusively about paying for a new car. Which, of course, I had to buy to do my job.
• The stress of the last few days has worn me down, which means that I am now sick, with a cold.

I am happy to have a new car, no doubt. My car was almost 14 years old, so I had good innings with it. But it was deteriorating and had its eccentricities, a number of squeaks and chirrups which earned it the nickname Birdie, as well as a serious lack of air conditioning and no discernable means of auditory entertainment but a radio with a dead display and a tape player. It was time, and so now I have a reliable, safe, stress-free vehicle for the foreseeable future.

But it didn’t happen at the best of times, what with ongoing debt and Christmas and all. I would have liked a couple more years out of old Birdie to at least beat down our debt for a while longer. And even if it could have waited until after the holidays, we would not have to worry so much about budget for Christmas.

But things happen for a reason. Better I know now that things were falling apart now, than to find out the hard way on some snow-whipped sideroad up north on some winter morning. And at least it came at a time when there were some incentives going on at the dealership to unload their old models in advance of the 2011s. And they gave me $500 as a trade in on my old clunker, so that’s something.

So tomorrow, if paperwork obliges, I’ll say bye bye to old, tired Birdie, and I’ll be in possession of my new car. Which, hopefully, I don’t have to worry about futzing with again until, say, 2020.