We've started shopping for a new car. What should we tell the old one?
As a child, I was a big fan of The Love Bug movies, silly films about a VW Beetle called Herbie, who was alive, and had all sorts of outlandish adventures. It isn’t hard for a child to imagine that inanimate objects might be secretly sentient, and cars are a particularly plausible candidate. After all, they’re mobile, with four wheels instead of legs, and a bumper-bar for a mouth. Then there’s the whole headlights-for-eyes thing, which pretty much seals the deal.
Perhaps this explains why the nine-year-old me was inconsolable when my parents sold the family car. It was an old, rust-brown Cortina with a gear stick that almost made my mum swear. But it was the only car I’d ever known, so I sat in the driveway wailing as it was driven away for the last time. As if a beloved cow that had outlived its value was being taken off to the slaughterhouse.
Decades later, I thought my husband might cry when his old car was sold. It was a sporty little two-door BMW that he’d bought secondhand, with a cheque from one of his first proper writing gigs. He loved that car, but it was ageing, and it was unreliable, and strapping a toddler in the back seat was near impossible. So, we replaced it with a more sensible car, for sensible parents.
Now that sensible car is in its twilight years. Leaking fluids and making noises, its dashboard regularly aglow with warning lights. So, we’ve bitten the bullet and started looking for a new car.
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If you’re not a car person, this process is intensely boring. Like one of those work meetings that start off OK, but go on and on, with a new point being raised for discussion every time you think it might finally be over. With cars, you have to seem interested in things such as tyre rim width and boot size, while pretending you have the vaguest idea about fuel efficiency. Focussing on colour is not an appropriate car-shopping strategy.
Then there’s the question of what to do with the old vehicle. We might trade it in, but we wouldn’t get much, given all those leaks and noises and lights. Would it perhaps end up being scrapped? Again, lengthy car-related discussions ensued, as I zoned out and prayed for it all to end.
After a long day of this automotive torture, we finally climbed into our old car, to drive home. And, as the engine turned over, I felt a surge of grief. Or was it betrayal? I wondered, did our car know what we’d been doing? That we’d been plotting its demise? I was taken aback by this sudden Herbie-esque delusion. The idea that I should apologise to the car, even though it’s just a big chunk of metal. Isn’t it?
Later, I realised why I’d felt so upset. This car had driven our family countless miles. We’d moved from baby seats, to toddler seats, to booster seats, and then to crowded seats, as my children’s legs grew long and strong. It had taken us to swimming lessons and play dates, and on those long weekend drives that my husband so loves. It was the first car I’d driven, the first one I’d owned. It had endured many dents, yet always gotten us home.
It’s a car I’ve wept in and sung in. It even got us to my father’s funeral, after my son developed an ear infection and we decided to drive to Sydney rather than fly. We’d all piled in, and raced up the Hume, making it with an hour to spare. Just in time to say our goodbyes to Dad.
My husband must have been feeling the same way, because out of the blue he announced that having two cars might not be a bad idea. That perhaps we’d hold onto the old one, at least until it conks out. And the whole family heartily agreed.
When we do get a new car, and we leave the old one behind for our first long weekend drive, I may well cry. Like I did when I was nine. Not because that old car’s taken on a life of its own, but because it’s lived our life with us. The fun, the grief, and the day-to-day grind, all of which add up to our family’s little history. So, when it is eventually hauled off to the scrapyard, it won’t just be a chunk of metal they’re taking away. It’ll be a big part of us.
@monicadux