Our paths diverged in the woods and I took the one without you on it.
The last time my ex wife and I had to buy a car, she was upset because I had essentially chosen all of our cars before. Never mind that I made more practical choices, it wasn't fair. After weeks of browbeating, I acquiesced. "You know how broke we are. Choose whatever you want and we will live with the consequences." Little did I know, I would be living with them well past the end of our marriage.
You see, given freedom to choose whatever she wanted, instead of choosing a car for herself, she choose a Volkswagen Beetle. The problem there might not be immediately obvious. You see, she could only drive an automatic. She couldn't be bothered to learn to drive a stick, certainly not from me. She choose a five year old, manual transmission, Volkswagen Beetle. You see, she cared more about appearances than about practicality or even courtesy. She didn't care if I liked it. She cared only that we would own a Beetle.
I'm probably short-changing her, but considering that I had to drive the car for the next 5-7 years, I'm okay with that. We even got a 49cc scooter out of it, not that she ever rode the scooter. And to make it worse, the scooter wasn't really powerful enough to carry my large, overweight torso, though I tried for a while. I stopped when I got tired of frequent stalls anytime we (me and the scooter) went up a short incline.
I drove the beetle faithfully for years. When we were divorced, I still drove it. Last year, it cost me over $3,000 to keep it running. When I chose a job in Florida (I lived in St. Louis, MO), the car was dying if I ever failed to run it for more than 24 hours. I knew it wasn't long for this world.
I packed the car, drove to Florida, parked the car and left it. And, there it sat for months. Finally, just this week, in fact, I donated the car to charity. It had been sitting in the parking lot for nearly 6 months. I am no longer insured. I don't drive at all.
Goodbye, VW Beetle. We've been through some really bad times, you and I. I hope your next owner appreciates you way more than I did.
