December 27, 2006
APPJ 440
We've been getting around to replacing the car for a long time, and today we finally got our act together and bought a gently used 2006 Matrix. All the Matrices on offer are light grey, for some reason that makes sense in Cambridge. We traded in my ancient Corolla for $1,238.74, which is a tribute to C's negotiating skills.
I'm very fond of the Corolla, but when I say it was dirty, I mean that there were sprinklings and small piles of earth here and there from garden expeditions. A small friend, at the time aged maybe two and a half, looked at the passenger seat some time ago, and said solemnly: 'I think your car is a little bit dirty.' Gardeners' cars are, I think.
A car accumulates all kinds of odd things: there was a watch and four tire pressure gauges in the glove compartment. The gas cap is a different shade of blue from the rest of the car because of a mistake I made in the Canadian Tire automotive paint section, and the right front bumper has a munch in it from a mistake I made turning a corner.
There is also a persistent smell of dog, strong, faint or dormant depending on the season. One reason to sell the Corolla now, apart from wanting to go through the winter with a new car, is because the dog smell is fainter. All the cars of my childhood smelled of dog, and I always took it for granted, but it has been made clear to me many times that that isn't a universal assumption, and I yield to the majority.
It was a car that was tolerant of being ridden hard and put away wet, saw us through all kinds of dramas and crises (if memory serves, I drove it to my father's funeral), and it certainly didn't owe us any money.
