Geekito, Ergo, Sum

This is what my car SHOULD look like.

It doesn’t. The front fender is smashed up, the rear bumper is cracked, the inner door panel on the driver’s side front door is off, the driver’s side back door inner panel is damn near off, the paint is cracking, the AC is completely dead (in GEORGIA. in the SUMMER.) , the gear shift knob is held on only by gravity, the rear brakes need work, and the EGR valve needs to be replaced for the second time in two years (and that before my birthday next month, since I gotta pass emissions).

I got talked into buying the car by a so-called friend who worked at the dealership. This was my first buying-from-a-dealership experience but I was assured time and time again that he’d “cut through the bullshit” and give me the best possible deal without dicking me over. I trusted him and turned over the keys to my beloved first car, a gold ‘92 Accord EX with pimp-as-hell burgundy interior and a sunroof. The fuel pump was having issues (it wouldn’t start when it was too hot, which was a big problem), the tires and brakes had just been replaced, and I thought I saw the writing on the wall with it… but hey, I had just been promoted! Fuck yeah! New car!

Needless to say, I’ve realized now that I got dicked over. The first clue should’ve been that it went so smoothly… the second is that I got sold on GAP protection (which would have been great, I’m sure, if I would’ve lost my job but was an unnecessary expenditure) and other bullshit vaguely warranty-ish things that no longer apply, Add to that the massive amount of sales tax on a new car and the end result is THE SHAFT.

All of this isn’t to say that I didn’t love that car for the first few years I had it. Drove well, handled well, AC was arctic-cold, seats were relatively comfortable… stereo was awesome because it was the aftermarket one that I bought… but the car wasn’t in great shape for long. I got rear-ended a few months into owning it, and crushed part of my front bumper/fender area soon after.

The worst part? I still owe $4,000 on the fucking thing. I want desperately to get out of that deathtrap. Sadly, the Blue Book is between $3200 and $3900 and the NADA trade-in value in rough condition is $3,600… and we all know that when you trade a car in you’ll never get the full NADA or Blue Book value. I’m pretty damn sure that I can’t get a loan covering the amount that I owe, I can’t raise the money for a good down payment thanks to other expenses, and . The folly of 2005 has come to bite me in the ass five years later.

Rant over. I feel a lot better.

And I’ll keep feeling better until I have to climb into the thing, avoid bashing my knee on the exposed steel bits of my driver’s side door, shift the car into reverse and have the knob come off in my hands, and then drive somewhere between 25 and 40 minutes in the roiling Georgia heat (motto: “Because you’ve always wanted to feel like you’re inside of Satan’s nutsack!”) .

Then I’ll feel angry again.