When Words Collide, Sentences Form

There has to be an easier way...

My dad has found what may be the most difficult, dangerous and expensive way to replace his car when he gets sick and tired of it. He wrecks it.

I know that the bright red '93 Dodge Intrepid has been through some rough times. It's unreliable, to phrase it nicely. It has been in accidents with no less than 3 of our family's four members behind the wheel. And it was just plain getting old. But really, the best way to replace it is to just sell it to some sucker off the street or take your $1,000 on the trade in. Not to wrap it around a pole or wedge it under an SUV. Com'on Dad!

Now, I'm writing this blog without speaking to the guilty party. Basically I found out about the demise of the car that was originally my high school graduation present (gulp) 10 years ago from a brief IM conversation with my mom. (Yes - the ideal way to find out your parental unit has wrecked his car.)

Basically:
The Mom: Did you hear about the Intrepid? (Sidenote: This is usually followed by a sentence such as "The engine blew up." "The brakes went out." "Something fell off and we don't know what it is but the car is kinda still running." "Dad figured out what fell off and replaced it with a combo of duct tape, tongue depressors and chicken wire.")

The Steph: No, what happened now?

The Mom: It decided to take a nose dive under an SUV.

The Steph: What? When? Is Dad OK?

The Mom: Yeah, going between 3 and 4 MPH. Yesterday afternoon. Yeah, it happened yesterday, Dad is OK. It's wrecked.

The Steph: It was wrecked at 3-4 MPH??

The Mom: Yep, completely went under the SUV.

The Steph: Do you have pictures???

(Yes, there are pictures, and when I get them, I will edit this blog and insert them!)

There are two histories to understand...my dad's ability to acquire new cars within 24 hours of when he apparently decides he wants one while living in FL, and the Intrepid's history of torturing our family which makes it deserve to suffer the horrible death of being pinned under an SUV on the entrance ramp of I-75.

My dad has gotten the hand-me-down cars from me and my sister in the past. Basically, we drive a lot more than he does, and when our cars have gotten too unreliable for us, he has kinda taken them over. That was how he got the blue Jeep Cherokee. It was my sister's first car, and became my dad's car sometime after my family moved to FL. See if you can follow this tangled web: I had the Intrepid. My sister had a Jeep. My mom sold her car in NY to move (and my dad initially stayed in NY for a year to finish retirement so he had his Ford Tempo up there. Yes, a Ford Tempo. It's better than his last car before that - a GMC Pacer. Even Hot Wheels doesn't make them anymore as Match Box Cars.) My mom got a new truck, I took that, my sister kept her Jeep and my mom drove the Intrepid. Then my dad moved down and he took the Jeep Cherokee, my mom bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee and my sister got the Intrepid. (Through every car transaction from here on out, I kept the truck and my mom has kept the Jeep Grand Cherokee.) Then...my dad must have decided, "Hey, I really don't like this Jeep Cherokee anymore." So he ran it off the road and knocked over a telephone pole or something. And flipped it. And wrecked it. He was OK. Car and pole - not so much.

So then they bought a used Ford Explorer and my sister got that. And my dad got the Intrepid. My mom and I kept our cars. Then, apparently, yesterday, my dad decided he didn't like the Intrepid anymore. And here is probably why:

Pretty much from the 2nd month I had the Intrepid, it started breaking down. My first two years in college, in the shop every other Thursday. Out the next Monday. And that pattern of unreliableness never really ended during it's long life.

Then when my mom had it, she held it out as a target at a stop light for a guy who didn't understand what a red light meant. And it probably should have been totaled, only the insurance guy read the mileage as 67,000 instead of 167,000. So a few weeks later, she got it back.

Then I borrowed it one weekend when I was home to go to a Devil Rays game to watch a friend pitch. And decided to take it water skiing on the highway during a rain storm on the way home. And hyroplaned right off the road, into the grassy median, bending some bracket things in the back...and denting the door, but my dad was able to fix it.

And then yesterday, my dad wedged it under an SUV. My mom gets hit by a guy going 30 MPH, I fly off the road going 50 MPH, and my dad is going 3 MPH AND WRECKS IT! Huh??

So now my dad, or more likely with recent history, my sister, will wind up with a new car because he just decided it was easier to wreck the car than to buy a new one. Nice tactic. I'm buying him a HANS device, helmet and flame retardant suit for Christmas.

posted by Steph @ 4:28 PM