Val the Volvo

Oh that little red car, we've been through so much together. 80,000 miles and 5 1/2 years. I bought her when I was fresh out of school after an 8-year run with trusty Cecilia the Celica.

Just a year into our relationship, a psychotic neighbor in our condo complex fired 10 rounds into poor Val while she sat quietly in her designated parking spot on a hot Saturday afternoon in July. This happened just one week prior to us moving out of that godforsaken place and into the home where we now live. (We still own that condo...please don't tell any prospective tenants about the shooting.)

48 days later, I had her back (nothing was damaged under the hood...it was all cosmetic), and then she was reliably taking me on my 60-mile round trip journey to and from work every day from our new house.

Shortly thereafter, she was all paid off, and I vowed that I would drive her till she would drive no more. She is a slow car with nothing fancy about her, and her gas mileage is great. But she is so cute. All she's ever asked of me is regular maintenance...oil changes, a couple of batteries, brakes, tires, fluids, etc. No big deal. What a great companion on my long commute she's been.

But then something happened. We had a baby. I swore that wouldn't change things regarding Val's status in the family, but it meant that Dylan would be driving her more often. He doesn't think she's as cool as I think she is. He wanted to put ski racks on her to up her cool factor, but he never did. And then something else happened. Val's bigger and older brother, Vic the Volvo, came into some trouble. Which led us to discover that in fact he needed a lot of work to keep him in good shape.

New car, I said. New car. I couldn't be driving old Vic with 100,000 miles on him and risk breaking down with the baby in the car while Dylan was out of town. So we were officially in the market for some new wheels. And then, somehow, tricky old Dylan decided that we would put the work into Vic and keep him in the family for a while longer since he's worth so much more to us than any amount of money we could ever get for him. But he also said that we shouldn't let the same thing happen to Val. That we should sell her before she hit 6 digits in mileage, while she still ran well and someone would want to buy her.

Haha, I said. Val is damaged goods. Nobody will buy her after the big shoot-out. She's not going anywhere. But lo and behold, her Carfax report turned up clean. And Dylan really wanted to take control of Vic again. Vic the gas hog isn't really a practical car for me to be driving to the other end of town in anyway. But I needed something bigger. For safety reasons, and just because the baby somehow requires lots of luggage whenever we go anywhere.

So one day while I was at work and Dylan found himself unexpectedly in town because of a cancelled trip, he wound up at Toyota for an extended period of time. He was on the brink of buying a Prius V, which would have been a very practical choice. But it had rained that day, and I could barely cross the ditch in our road with big Vic, so I knew the dirt might be a little rough on a Prius. And of course Dylan knows the sales manager at Toyota because he knows everybody. So they found the perfect cross-over car. A Venza. A brand new 2013 with 27 miles. They had to get it off the lot, as it is almost 2014. So after some amazing rebates and what not, Dylan scored a smoking deal on my new car. I didn't know what a Venza was. I'd never seen one. He sent me a text picture and said I'd probably like it pretty good. So I said okay, go for it.

And I do love it! It's the perfect size...still kind of small, but with tons of room in the trunk and the backseat. It's not very powerful, which means it will get decent gas mileage, and it's not very fancy but still looks real nice. I'm not a real bells and whistles kinda girl. It should be the perfect safe and practical vehicle for Gavin and me while we make our way to the southern stretches of Scottsdale and back.

But I still love Val. She still has a spot in the garage, and nobody's done anything about selling her yet, but I know that her days in our family are numbered. It makes me so sad. If it made any sense at all to keep her, then I would do it. But I'm sure she'll make somebody very happy. They will be lucky to have her.

As it weird as it is to have such an emotional attachment to a material thing, it also makes so much sense. Val was there as I kicked off my journey into adulthood. I was newly engaged, and I had finally graduated and stopped going to school so that I could be an actual grown-up. It was a bumpy road for a while. I had a tough time being a grown-up because at first I was really unhappy with my career choice. (What do you do in a case like that? Obviously you buy a car on which you'll have to make payments for a couple years so that you're tied even tighter to the job you hate. Don't judge...I was young.) So much has happened since I bought her. Switched jobs, got married, bought a house, adopted a couple of mutts, and had a baby. I've come full circle since I first brought that little red car home. From pretty miserable while I was finding my bearings to deeply grateful that life is about as good as it could possibly get. What an incredible journey, but as with all good things, this chapter must end. I'm confident that life will remain good as we embark on some new adventures, and Tony the Toyota and I will become close friends very soon.