Last Saturday Jen donated her 1994 Oldsmobile Achieva to the American Lung Association. It had more than 104,000 miles on it and the interior lights would not turn off.
Since driving the car across the country in 1999 when Jen left New York to move to California, we had only put several thousand miles on the car. It was always nice to have a backup car, but after moving to the city, it became apparent that it was time to kiss Old Faithful goodbye for lots of reasons: We will need the tax write-off next year when we’re married; we would have had to move the car on a weekly basis to avoid street-cleaning tickets; we would have been paying $65 per month insurance on a car that’s rarely driven (sure, we no longer get the multi-car discount, but we still end up saving $37.27 per month); we would have eventually had to pay lots more in repairs, which would soon have outweighed the value of the car.
One car is enough for the both of us, especially since my WRX is still almost brand new (just over 14,000 miles on it) and I pay an arm and a leg for the privilege of driving it: $465 per month loan payment, $150 per month insurance, $64+ per month in bridge tolls, nearly $2 per gallon for the super unleaded to fuel my turbo. But the value of driving it: Priceless.
Goodbye, Achieva, and thanks for the memories. It was in you, good vessel, that Jen and I began the journey of our life together in that drive across the country 4 years ago.
