Farewell to the Pity Car

Time to say goodbye to a car that served me well but without distinction.  Its ten years old and I got it used a few years back when one of my kids,  um, dispatched my Honda Accord.  With shifts to work and little time to car shop I bought the first thing that came to hand, a 2004 Ford Focus.

Hey, I like Ford as a company.  The don't need government bailouts for one thing.  And I got good highway mileage in the thing.  Sure it was a dowdy little tin can of and winter driving was a bit like snowboarding but I figured at least in a year or two I could give it to one of my kids.

They wouldn't take it.

Well as it turns out the Universe intervened.  I was finishing up an overnight shift in which I had actually managed a couple of hours sleep.  As I wandered, eyes asquint, over to get my breakfast tray I noticed that it was pitch black outside.  Huh.  It was supposed to be 7:30 am.  Was the call room clock wrong?

I looked out into the hospital parking lot just in time to see torrential rain and marble sized hail, both pounding down at a 45 degree angle.  My poor little car never had a chance.

It looks like a golf ball.  There must be five hundred dents in it.  On the top.  On the sides.  I suspect there might be a few on the undercarriage.

Sometimes "only a flesh wound" is pretty bad

The insurance company is calling it a total loss.

So farewell.  You always got me where I needed to go.  My risk of carjacking was zero when driving you. I feel a little sad.  It still runs fine but the cost of fixing it exceeds any possible resale value.  The insurance company will presumably sell it for it dissected parts.

It showed an unexpected toughness, bending but never breaking.  So as it drives away, dinged, pitted but undefeated I feel for it, well, pity.

It was a work horse.  And at the end of its days it will go where broken down work horses end up. Sure, the jovial claims agent I spoke with promised me that it would be going to a happy place, a farm or perhaps a beach where it would never have to drive up hills again and where it would get a nice coat of wax periodically.

But we all know better.