"New" Car

I have been thinking about this car for a few weeks. I saw it parked on a lawn across the street from David's with a "For Sale" sign on it and it set my mind in motion. I've been looking for a replacement for the Capitalist Pig Car without much enthusiasm, since I didn't think I could afford one. Still, I feel that the Chrysler's healthy days are numbered and was worried about what I would do when it died. Somehow I felt that this little car might be the answer. I called the number on the sign and arranged to meet the owner yesterday. She told me the car was $1200.

It may be difficult to imagine how a person who can not afford to buy fuel thinks that a $1200 car is within the realm of possibility, but my head whirled with schemes until I had devised a way to do it. I assumed the owner would let it go for a thousand dollars. I had enough credit left on my combined credit cards to come up with part of it. Then the pay days fell this month so I could put off paying my rent for two weeks and use this week's check toward the car. Armed with this idea, I met Celeste at the appointed hour.

With confidence I did not really feel, I drove the car down the street. The car had frozen to the ground and took off reluctantly, leaving pieces of ice and mud the size of boulders in the road for several hundred yards. Eventually it hit its stride and everything went well. I returned to tell Celeste I wanted to take the car to the garage for an inspection and she agreed. We went to Spinney's and left the car there while we went to have coffee. Jim and Ron assured me they would give the car a good going over. While we sipped coffee and ate stuffed mushrooms at the Happy Crab I found out that Celeste shared my affection for chickens. She has three chickens and two ducks that live in the house with her, her dogs, and her cats (as well as her 87-year-old mother). She does keep them confined to the kitchen, where they enjoy bathing and drinking in the sink and roost on the stove. I liked her and enjoyed her loud chatter and flamboyant manner.

When we returned to the garage, Ron told me that the car was in fine shape. He had driven it, put it up on the lift to examine its underbody, tested all its fluids and hoses and whatnots, its engine and lights and heater and wipers, it's tires and belts and whatever else he could do. He told me that it would be a good car for me and advised me to buy it. I paid him twelve dollars for his trouble and off we went to make the deal.

Celeste owns the trailer across from David and that's where we went to do our paper work. Up to this time we had not mentioned price again, but on the way through the door I told her I was prepared to offer her a thousand dollars. She seemed somewhat taken aback, but agreed readily and the deal was done. Over tea and bills of sale and registration transfers, we chatted jovially and promised to get together for coffee again in the future. She tried to sell me everything in the house, including the chairs we sat in and the table in front of us. I had to decline, not that it wasn't tempting, for obvious financial reasons.

So why was I not so creative in solving my fuel bill problem? Because if I had used the same money for that, it would have solved the problem for only a few weeks and then I would be back in the same situation. It is literally the last financial resource I have. I did not want to send it into the abysmal mouth of my furnace.

The car has lifted my spirits no end. I have been embarrassed by the Chrysler since the day I got it. It has been a great car and served its purpose, but I am so happy to have one that looks like other cars on the road instead of a junked presidential limousine. I feel right in a smaller, front-wheel drive car like those I have had in the past. As long as it doesn't have some hidden flaw, I'm convinced the purchase was a good one.