Joel the Obstinate and Cursed Jetta has been an ornery cuss since spring when he started having problems getting started. If he sat more than two weeks without being driven, he needed to be jumped. Then it started dwindling to less than two weeks, and finally a week after his last jump, he wouldn’t start at all. The battery is only two years old. The original lasted me eight years. Bob’s dad brought over his battery charger on Sunday and hooked up ye old Jetta and eventually got it started. He suspects it is actually a bad battery and if that’s the case, it should be a semi-cheap fix. If not, it’s a trip to VW and a minimum of a few hundred dollars. Joy of absolute fucking joys.<\/p>\n
God dammit, Joel.<\/p>\n
And yet, despite how much I hate driving with a fiery passion from the depths of Hell<\/s>, just the idea of getting a new car sends me into a panic that ramps up almost as high as making a damn phone call.<\/p>\n
Issues.<\/p>\n
I have them.<\/p>\n
We’ve been over this.<\/p>\n
I love Joel. He was my first car, my first real adult responsibility, and as soon as I sat in him for the first time (or his cherry red twin as it were) for a test drive, I KNEW<\/i> I had found MY CAR<\/i>. I thought I wanted a blue car, until I saw his shiny, reflex silver paint job. I have not driven any other vehicle since I drove him off the dealership lot on October 8th, 2002. I don’t know how to drive any other car. He is eleven years old and he has just shy of 68,000 miles on him. He has butt warmers, heated mirrors, purple dash lights, and stupidly located cup holders. He’s compact and cute and designed for someone as short as me. He took us on an 1,800 mile road trip that broke his speedometer. He’s had his front bumper replaced twice, his rear once, and been the victim of four collisions (rear-ended twice, side-swiped and spun into a snowbank in a ditch, and backed into when parked in the street). He’s been stuck in park in my driveway and had to be towed to the dealership, and had his “brake light switch” replaced three times (all under warranty, the final on an actual recall). He’s been pulled over for a burnt out taillight, had three flat tires, a new windshield, and he’s on the “Used Cars to Avoid” list by Consumer Reports. He’s caused me more full-blown panic attacks than any one inanimate object should.<\/p>\n
But he’s mine.<\/p>\n
And I love him.<\/p>\n
I will cry actual tears when I have to get rid of him.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/media\/graphics\/headphones50.png\" "\\"now") <\/td>\n | The World Has Come Between Us \nStage<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was Sunday… Joel the Obstinate and Cursed Jetta has been an ornery cuss since spring when he started having problems getting started. If he sat more than two weeks without being driven, he needed to be jumped. Then it started dwindling to less than two weeks, and finally a week after his last jump, he wouldn’t start at all. The battery is only two years old. The original lasted me eight years. Bob’s dad…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/media\/blog\/2013pics\/goddammit%20joel.png","fifu_image_alt":"God Dammit Joel...","iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,121,31,6],"tags":[224],"class_list":["post-2798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-woes","category-goddammit-joel","category-pictures","category-this-is-my-brain-and-welcome-to-it","tag-224","wpcat-89-id","wpcat-121-id","wpcat-31-id","wpcat-6-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/media\/blog\/2013pics\/goddammit%20joel.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2798"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11363,"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798\/revisions\/11363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getalifebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |