It’s the tragic inevitability of long-term car ownership: the breakdowns become more frequent, and replacement parts so expensive that you wind up chain-smoking Lucky Strikes like Don Draper.Yet I’m really going to miss that damn SUV.
On Friday, it was pronounced legally dead, and I find myself in a true period of mourning. Of course that seems silly, but a car can become such an integral part of your life that when it’s taken away, you feel an emptiness. Not as much as a family member or a pet passing on (well, maybe more than a cat), but I spent nine years putting 152,000 miles on that Montero Sport, and have some have some very emotional memories.
My SUV predated 911. Clinton had just left office when I drove it off the lot and made my first call as a happy, new car owner on my Startac phone. Raiders owner Al Davis was still alive. (I firmly believe the team’s been trotting him out Weekend-At-Bernie’s style since ’04.)
I spent the past three days reflecting on everything that had taken place in that vehicle: driving to countless auditions and acting classes, and 60-mile round trips to casting workshops. My SUV even had a couple of movie credits, appearing in two independent films.
I thought about the first kisses that took place before dropping off dates. Petey as a puppy, always putting down the back window with his paw on our way to the dog park. Road-tripping in a rainstorm to San Diego to see the Jets stun the Chargers in OT. Picking up takeout and bringing it to my brother and his wife in the hospital, where I held my niece when she was 90 minutes old.
Someone once saw my car and said, “A Mitsubishi? Don’t they make VCRs?” Yep. And a decade I wouldn’t trade for anything.
