A Car By Any Other Name

A couple of months ago my car suffered from a seemingly life-ending fire that started when my Ipod Nano overheated overnight.  Apparently the combustability of the Ipod was not a big enough selling point for Steve Jobs to tout when it was released, although I am not the only one to discover its incendiary properties.

Hoping she was still salvageable I took my faithful car, which I had just told Heather the day before how much I still loved, to a mechanic but the prognosis wasn't good.   If the car were my grandma, and the mechanic were a doctor, he would have advised pulling the feeding tube and starting to sort out who gets the afghan collection.  Have you ever wondered how the afghan was invented?  Was it like, "I've got a great idea!  What if you had a blanket full of holes made out of yarn, so it's neither warm nor attractive, but you can't throw it away because some old lady spent countless evenings hand making this thing?"  But I digress.

Needless to say, the car was going to cost more to gut and replace the melted wiring than it would cost to buy a replacement vehicle.  It seemed the Vibe was headed to the big junkyard in the sky.  Or more accurately, the big junkyard at the edge of town, where they would give me $300 bucks for her.  Then fate intervened.  A friend from church asked me if I was interested in buying a damaged Vibe at a car auction and using the parts from my car to fix it much cheaper than buying the parts from a junkyard or dealer.  I told him sure, and he found a t-boned vibe that was one year newer than mine with 5,000 more miles, and we got it for only $2,000.  It was in need of new doors and a couple of front fenders, but since my car's exterior is still in great shape, it was a great match.  In fact, the car was even the same color of blue, so it was a perfect match. 

Currently Garry is working on transferring my old Vibe's exterior parts and hoping to get it fixed up for around another $2,000.  The new Vibe does have a couple of key differences from my old one - I will now have front wheel drive instead of all wheel drive, which means hopefully better gas mileage and acceleration (yeah) but less sure-footedness in the winter (boo).  On the positive side, the new car has the moons and tunes package, which means 6 speakers, a better radio, and a moon roof.  I love riding my motorcycle but with summer winding down I am looking forward to having a car again.  Not just having a car again, but having my Vibe again.  I have even decided on a name for her: Christine.  Seems appropriate since she is a reincarnation of my old car rising from the ashes.  Let's just hope she doesn't chase me down any alleys.