Goodbye Ol' Paint
As you may recall, late last year, Matt managed to get in a fender-bender and between that and other issues the old '95 Merc C280 had, it was totalled as costing more to fix than it was worth. That was the basis behind getting the '06 Town & Country around xmastime. So even though it was totalled, the registration was good until the following June an they let us keep liability insurance on it. So we kept it around as a (barely) functioning second car. It's not like we need two cars that often and the Jeep is still stranded in the garage needing more work than it's worth (maybe).
i still remember the day that i picked it up - it was 7 years old at the time and had 125,000 on the odo so i only paid $12,000 for it - i picked Matt up at Enterprise where he worked at the time to head off to Chicago for a weekend vacation. As we rolled down Highway 40 making a run for the Illinois border, he pulled off his tie and threw it in the backseat. But it didn't make it to the backseat. He had misjudged the new sunroof and the tie went sailing away in our wake. Once we realised what had happened, we busted out laughing and kept on moving, not looking back, the tie abandoned to the tires along the highway.
Now that the registration is expired, it was time for it to go. Matt didn't wanna fuck around with Craigslist, so he called a salvage company and got a few hundred bucks and no hassles. As the guy was finishing up the chains to pull it up on the flatbed, i recalled when i replaced the hood ornament after it got broken a couple years ago. At the time, i figured it would be a major operation to swap out, but actually it's just a twist of a retainer ring and it pops right out. So i asked the guy if i could have a couple minutes. "Sure!" i popped the hood and with a couple of grunts i had liberated the star. With a push of a lever and a whirr of a winch, the ol' girl was off to the junkyard. But the Power of the Star will still live on.
