Out With the Old, In With the New (Off-Topic)

First, let me apologize. Too much doing stuff this week and no time to review anything. At one point I actually managed to break my key off in the lock to my apartment. On a 90 degree say. That was a pip.

But this isn’t about that. This is about thanking someone.

Some friends of mine did something incredibly generous, and I want to publicly thanks them.

I’ve been without a car for a while. Oh, I had one but it was waylaid by a two-dollar plastic part. I managed to replace the one on the tiptop of my brake pedal when that one went (keeping the brake lights on permanently until I pulled the fuse) but when the one at the top of the clutch went (which meant the interlock wouldn’t let the car start) there was no way I could get it in there without losing 50 lbs, growing my left arm four feet and developing a telescoping neck- and if you have a Honda this WILL happen to you. No biggie, since I take the bus or walk mostly, but people here look at you funny if you tell them you don’t have a car. They wonder if you have a personality disorder, or ran over a gaggle of pregnant clergymen carrying puppies while drunk. I think most of my friends just chalk it up to me being from “back East”

The situation was however coming to a head. This is the year the car would have to be smogged to be re-registered. Which means it would have to be fixed. Now, I have a very reputable Honda guy who gave me a litany of things that would have to be done, and pretty darned soon: tires, shocks, struts, axle boots, timing belts, schnitzel valves, catatonic converters, buggy-bumper mounts- well you get the idea, and yes I did make up the last three, but it was in the mid couple of thousands. All of which would leave me with a car with 120k miles and crummy AC.

So Im going from this..

I have these friends who are retired. Since they’re retired they don’t use their second car a lot, which was the wife’s. (which was the case with the Honda; I bought it off of a co-worker, she and her husband were moving back  to Italy. It was barely used). I asked last week if I could borrow it to go see my goldchild’s art installation near Pasadena since it would be three hours each way on the bus.

Then I decided for the heck of it to ask. They mentioned they were going to get rid of the car since they almost never used it except to run it to and service it- so much so that even though it’s only two years newer than my ’93 it’s only got 57k miles on it. So I emailed them asking if they would consider selling it. A day later they emailed me back saying that they would GIVE it to me. I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I’m looking for work, and having a car that I know is reliable and well cared for and safe is a great thing. That’s hands-down the nicest thing ever done for me and although they likely don’t want it publicized I do have to thank them publicly somewhere, so here it is.

..to this.

I donated my car to the classical music station at USC.