The Importance of Vehicle Maintenance

Sunday night I got a call from my dad. Someone had crashed a car into their house.

At first I assumed it was a drunk driver. What I couldn't figure out was, how drunk do you have to be to hit their house? Their neighborhood is an oval -- it doesn't go anywhere else. And they live on the straight part of the street. Furthermore, their driveway is half an acre long, and uphill. Seriously? How does that work?

Well, it turns out the driver was not drunk. It was a 70-year-old woman whose gas pedal in her new Toyota got stuck. She was visiting my parents neighbors across the street, started to back out of their driveway, and the pedal stuck. The car traveled across the street, up my parents driveway, into their garage door, the supports on the front porch, over the lavender bush, and into their next-door neighbor's tree.

Thankfully, my parents, and their cat, are fine (just somewhat shaken). Their cars even survived without so much as a scratch on either one.

But it was scary walking through their front door yesterday. Bricks, wood, glass, pieces of the car were everywhere. Miraculously their rocking chairs were unharmed as well. There is a temporary support holding up the porch ceiling, and the entire garage door is gone now. My parents' bedroom is crooked, and basically looks like it could come down at any minute. My mom says she won't sleep there for awhile, and I don't blame her -- even though it was deemed safe.

So, the lesson for today: Have your car inspected by a mechanic you know and trust. Get a Carfax report (or another report) before you buy. Take it in for regular checkups, just like you would your kids. After all, it is your life, and the lives of your passengers, that it's carrying.

Surely, you must be joking...

*****RANT WARNING*****

We recently bought our friend's car. Today we went down to the BMV to get the title taken care of, since his birthday was on Monday and the plates are now expired. I should probably mention that this was the second (and not final) visit on behalf of this particular car. Let's not forget the three times I went earlier this summer because of my old car.

Oh yes, my friends, this is a story about bureaucratic bullshit.

Let me back up a bit. I have owned my 1993 Nissan Altima for 5 years. Back when my husband and I were first dating, it was the nice car -- his had a broken speedometer, among other things. And really, for a 10-year-old car (even a 10-year-old Japanese sedan), it was in great shape. A few years later, my husband bought a 2002 Mazda Protege. So then that was the nice car. Fast forward a few more years, and we were planning to move to Boston with my newly discovered fetus. On a trip from Columbus to Cincinnati (where his dad lives), the Nissan started making funny noises. We were planning on leaving our cars here while he did a year's worth of grad work (would you want to pay for Boston insurance and a parking spot a quarter-mile from your tiny apartment, and oh yeah, have I mentioned Boston drivers are INSANE?). So we just figured we'd leave my car at his dad's house instead of his car, and in the meantime, my mechanic brother-in-law could look at it.

Long story short (yeah, I know, not that short), we decided my car was no longer fit for transporting an infant. We moved back in February and bought our friend's car with the intention of selling mine soon. It's taken us this long to sell my car, for about 30% less than what we wanted for it. The economists who say we're not in a recession can bite me. In the meantime, the tags expired in June because they were still in my mom's name -- she had turned the title over to me, oh, the weekend before we moved. No time to get new plates then. And because we live in an apartment, any car with expired tags gets a notice. Apparently people abandon cars in these parking lots? If you say so.... So I had to pay for new tags, despite the fact that we had already spent 4 months trying to sell it, all the while not driving it. And then I had my birthday three weeks ago. Another year's worth of tags. And then we sold the car, and they wanted more money from me to turn the title over to the person who bought it! WTF? They already get fees from the buyer, what the hell do they think I am, made of money?

Things must be simpler now that we've sold that car, right? Ha. So my husband goes to the BMV a few weeks back to get the title for the Hyundai (our friend's former car) turned over. Chad had signed the title and mailed it to us, since he lives in Cincinnati. My husband said he'd need to get it notarized, too, because it says right there on the title that that's what you have to do. They argued about it, and Chad insisted he was right. So Brandon took the title in, and guess what? They told him it needed to be notarized. We mailed it back to Chad, who took his sweet time getting it notarized and sent back to us.

So now we're caught up to today, thinking that nothing else could possibly go wrong. Why do we even bother? The lovely ladies at the title agency tell us that we still cannot finalize the sale of this car. (See the title of this post). "The car belongs to your friend and his wife. We can't turn the title over without both of their signatures. You can try going next door to License Services for a 30-day temporary tag so you don't get pulled over." Where they tell us that no, they cannot do that, because it would be illegal. Furthermore, we cannot put my brand-new license plates on this car, because those plates are only in my name, and not in both our names. Bite me. They might as well create a robot to do these people's jobs for them, because we would get just as much compassion from it.

We are now blessed with the privelege of sending back the title, having Chad's wife sign it, get it notarized, send it back, go back into the title agency, and try not to develop depression and ulcers in the process.

And all I could say to Brandon was, "When can we move to Canada?"