Car Payments

I made my last car payment today. I AM FINALLY DONE.

This is how I met my Civic...

My BF (at the time) and I were sharing an old Honda Accord that had more than 400,000 miles on it. Even though it's an old piece of crap, we loved it. It obviously was well taken care of, at least before we got it because it was in great condition. It was owned by a daughter of a mechanic in town. It made countless round-trips between Pennsylvania and Arkansas when she was in college. When we got it, it came across the country all the way to California.

The poor old car finally started to deteriorate after a year or so in LA and died in front a Honda dealership. It's fate! A salesperson came out of the dealeship and helped my ex push it into the parking lot. They looked at some cars (they were in the pre-owned section) and decided to discuss more the next day. I didn't want to deal with yet another car breaking down so we decided to buy a new car. That's how we ended up with my civic.

It was exciting to buy a new car, but also kind of sad to let go of the old piece of crap. The salesman told us of a woman who came in with an old Honda to trade it in for a new one. She was so attached to her old car that she asked to take it around the block one last time before she took the new one home. We ended up donating the old one to charity.

For some reason, I wanted to drive how to drive stick shift. So even though I didn't know how yet, we bought it anyways. I tried to learn driving through quiet residential areas in Santa Monica where every intersection has a stop sign. I sucked at it so bad that the cruch started to smell. I actually took a driving lesson to learn! It was so much easier with an old car.

I can't say that I treat the car very well. It has dents and scratches after 5 years of driving it around LA and into neighboring states. I even ran over a piece of tire on the way to Vegas and completely wrecked the front bumper. Luckily, it was fixed by just merely pouring hot water! The side mirror is still slightly broken from the time when I accidentally touched a parked truck trying to squeeze through.

So far, it really has not given me any problems. I thought it did, when it started shaking every time I was shifting from 1st to 2nd gear. I even took it to the mechanic to see if there was something wrong with it. The mechanic took it for a test drive around the block. When he came back, he simply said, "It's the driver."

Don't start breaking down on me yet! As you can see, I know squat about cars.