The End of an Era
December 02, 2012

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A long time ago, only 5 months after I started this blog, I bought a car. But not just any car, my dream car: a Volkswagen New Beetle. If you search for "beetle" on this blog, there are 13 entries about my car (maybe even more). I loved that car. Heck, I still love that car, even though I traded it in a week ago for a Honda Civic.

Honestly though, of those 13 entries, a lot of them are about the problems I had with my car. And from what I've been able to tell, I think I may have had it good as far as the amount of stuff I had to deal with. Most of it was pretty minor. But after 11 years, it was time. Time to give up on the driver's side door that I couldn't leave open too long or the alarm would go off. Time to leave behind the power locks that I frequently had to lock, unlock, and lock again to make sure the driver's side was really locked. I may have never mentioned the windshield wipers, but they were kind of crappy from day one (funny how you overlook things like that when you're driving your dream car). I'm not going to miss the way it would sometimes just lock itself after I got in the driver's seat and if I tried to start it without unlocking it, the car the alarm would go off. And let's not even get into the oil burning issue.

I'm listing off a bunch the car's problems because it makes me feel better about giving her up. It was really hard to trade in the car that made everyone say, "That's exactly the car I expect you to be driving!" But it's just a car. And after 11 years, I'm not going to miss filling it up with mid-range gas, the electrical problems, or the expensive repairs. A few days before we ended up shopping for cars, the disco ball that had been hanging from the rear view mirror fell off. It had been hanging there pretty much the entire time I had the car. It almost felt like she was trying to tell me it was time.

And yes, I could have gone down to the VW dealership and picked out a new one. But I'm over the whole two-door thing and as much as I like Volkswagen, what I really wanted was something reliable that would just run, and run and run. So we went to the Honda dealership and I test drove a Fit and a Civic. The Civic won. I'm not totally giddy about it the way I was with the beetle, but the fact that there's a USB connection for an iPod? That helps. A LOT. And honestly, the more I drive it, the more I like it. I may even get another disco ball for the rear view mirror...




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© Whitney Brandt-Hiatt: All writing, images, and photogrpahy are the property of Whitney Brandt-Hiatt unless otherwise noted.