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The death of Fernando

January 28th was just like any day. We woke up early, and Sammy dropped me off at the bus. I got to work and started my daily routine. I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket, but figured it was him sending love messages and letting me know he was safe at work. When I finally had some time and made it to my desk, I pulled my phone out. And then promptly started laughing. It said something to the effect of "Hey. So, there's smoke coming out of the glove box. I got a ride to work. I'm not driving Fernando." I don't know why it was so funny to me. Maybe it was because we'd already had a pretty stressful week. Maybe it was because it was the absurdity of picturing Sammy standing outside our smoking car, not knowing what to do. Maybe it was because I'd never heard of glove boxes smoking before. Either way, I was laughing. Hard. So hard people came in and wondered what my problem was.  But January 28th was the day we decided it was time to let Fernando go, and start our journey towards a new car.

Most people wouldn't just ditch their cars because of smoke in the glove box. But ole Fernando had a host of other problems, the biggest being his transmission. It's very sketchy at times to back him up. Once we were stuck on a hill in the snow because he wouldn't back up. He'd started acting up going forward as well which was scary. Every month since we've gotten married, Fernando's been in the shop. We said the last time that we were done with him and if he broke once more, it was time to let him go. We weren't expecting that to be so soon though.

We headed out on our car journey on Saturday. Sammy's family gets a family discount at Ford, so we went there, with Sammy's dad tagging along. I'm so glad he was there because that was my first time dealing with haggling. It was disgusting. I felt dirty afterwards. The short of it is we were there all day and I was quite impressed with Sammy's dad's poker face.

After our time haggling, we decided to go to a place called Echo Park. It's new, and like Car Max where there's no haggling. That week, both of our dad's were out of town so we went on our own which I was happy about. We first went to sell Fernando. It was an easy process. While we were there, they outlined how we could look at cars as well. We decided to give it a shot and came back on Saturday. But Monday, we left without Fernando. It was weird saying goodbye to him. I didn't really care, even though I have so many memories in that car, and I'm usually a very sentimental person.
They had a drink machine at Echo Park. I saw a button for chocolate milk, which is usually cold, so I grabbed a plastic cup for my milk. Well, I got hot chocolate and my cup proceeded to melt in my hands. I was so embarrassed I tried to drink the hot chocolate before the cup was completely gone. 

On Saturday, we looked at cars, test drived, filled out paperwork, and left with our new car in 2 1/2 hours. It was a pretty easy decision. Our new car only had one previous owner, and less that 20,000 miles on it. I was feeling anxious at first but the more Sammy and I talked about it, and a quick phone call to my dad, I felt great!

One fun thing was I got to talk writing, editing, novels, and psychology with our salesman. It was fun having someone interested in what I like to do for once. Everyone loves that Sammy is a banker and will talk to him for a long time about it, but with me, eh. So it was really cool! We writers need to stick together!

Here's our new car!
She's got a spoiler!
 Mike tested out the trunk space
A 2011 Nissan Sentra 

We love the new car and know we made the right decision. The first few days we were fighting over who got to drive her. I won a lot of the time though because my license wasn't expired like Sammy's ;)

This Friday we went to the DMV to register the car. We waited in line for hour, only to find out that you have to wait two to three months for the paperwork to be sent to you. Whoops! We're still new to this. 
I'm sad that Fernando had to go, but it's so nice having a reliable car. We're so excited to drive her out to Utah this summer. 

Comments

  1. Bailey KayFebruary 20, 2015 at 10:14 AM

    Nice new car!!! I'm still in love with my 2001 Ford Focus. I'm going to drive that baby until it falls apart.

    ReplyDelete

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