Good Bye Dear Plum

We finally had to bid farewell to our trusted Plum yesterday.  The separation did not occur without tears and wallet pains.  But we decided that this animal had lived long enough… and it was time to put it to sleep.

The Plum had been so good to us.  I remember well when the Plum ramped into a pile of steel on a highway in Washington State- blowing out all four tires and destroying the engine block; I’m impressed by the continent-crossing, not just once, but three times (once on a trailer, once driving, and once on a train!); I think fondly of the trips to Florida and Maine and Minnesota and Oregon; I loved the Plum for helping me get to Wrigley, Fenway, Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards, Riverfront, Shea, Safeco and even Busch.  Kathy and I kissed more than once in that car and we talked too- for hours and hours about life, love, faith and family.  All three of our kids rode countless miles in the Plum.  It followed us from Indiana to Vancouver to Rhode Island to Vancouver Island to Calgary.  Oh, did I love the Plum.

We bought the Plum in November of 1994!  That’s 12.5 years ago.  The price was $12,000- which we paid off in four years.  Yeah, it only had a cassette player and manual steering and roll-down windows.  But essentially it cost us less that $1,000 per year for that cute little purple pal.  Maintenance until this last year was not really needed.  Insurance cost next to nothing and gas mileage was pretty good.  Oh, the Plum was so kind to us.

We had hoped to run the Plum for another 50,000 miles.  But alas, it was ne’er meant to be.  Alberta would not allow it.  The out-of-province inspection threw down the gavel.  Our $500 value vehicle was going to cost us $2100 to bring up to code.  And even then, it still needed more work. 

So we sulked off to our new neighborhood Saturn dealership and said, “Look.  We have a car essentially worth negative $1600.  We love our Plum, but big ole’ Alberta says the car is decrepit and we can’t drive it anymore.  We’d like you to pay us $525 for it and give us a bunch of other rebates so that we could get a new car.  Oh, and 0% financing.”

Anyways, Saturn bought our car… and we said “good-bye” to our precious Plum.  Adios dear friend.  You will always be remembered.  But then again, maybe not.  We really like your replacement.  We think we’ll call him Storm.  He’s like you… only new.  Brand new.  And he has mp3 and only 6 km’s!