Dear Birdy,
I remember first meeting you, shiny and white, pretty for a car of your years, in a Kroger parking lot. The fellow selling you had to test drive you for me since I didn't know how to drive a stick yet. I spoke with my husband briefly, with the seller standing outside the car out of earshot, and we agreed that we needed to jump on it. This was the car, with 153,000 miles, a good price, and a good badge. We didn't know anything about how to inspect used cars. We didn't know that it was obvious your clutch was going out from all the engine noise. ...But oh, what a noise that noise was. It was beautiful. You sounded like some raptor out of hell, even at 2500 RPM, and so I named you Birdy.
Learning to drive you was relatively stressful. I'd read some about stick shifting, but it wasn't the easiest thing, and you didn't have the most forgiving clutch. But once I became competent, you and I were a force to be reckoned with. I absolutely loved you, because you were so loud and so fun, and because you hadn't disappointed me yet.
Then summer came, and we discovered you didn't have air conditioning. I soldiered through, more annoyed with each degree increase in temperature. I bought little ice packs to wrap around my neck in the hopes that I wouldn't have heat stroke when I drove you for hours in 98 degree heat on the highway with the windows down and the radio up (barely audible above the wind rushing past and the raptor scream of your troubled mechanics).
Then I was driving home from Durham (about a four-hour trip), and it was raining, and I was going to my friend's graduation the next morning. All of a sudden I hear this loud SQUEEK and the car lurches. WTF was that?! SQUEEK-lurch. What? Five minutes would pass between these lurches, then three minutes, then one. Scared out of my mind, I pulled off the highway to a mechanic in Mebane (30 minutes away from Durham). Since I was in a hurry and had to get home, substantial repairs could not be made, and he patched you up with some more transmission oil (almost all of which had leaked out before I'd gotten there), and sent me home with strict instructions to drive at no more than 60 MPH. About 45 minutes away from home you started SQUEEK-lurching with renewed zest (despite my slow driving), and I pulled off at a gas station and cried and called my dad.
I'll confess I absolutely hated you then. I hated having to leave you sketchily overnight at a gas station in the rain. I hated having to replace your transmission with a dubious used one. I hated shelling out an extra $1600 when I could have used that money to buy a better car than you. I hated the way you sounded neutered and lifeless when they replaced the clutch. I still hated that you didn't have AC. You had betrayed me in multiple ways. I kept wondering how I had gotten so unlucky.
But then miles went by with no problem. About 30,000 miles, in fact. I changed your oil religiously and attempted getting your AC fixed (to no avail). I replaced your radio with a used Sentra one that actually worked. Gradually I began to trust you again. We had a positive relationship. You had precise steering, a peppy engine, good solid brakes, and a loud sound system. You were roomier than the cars I had been used to growing up, and although you had your quirks, you were on the whole a lovely car. Recently I've been getting more and more tired of you, yes, because of your age and your little troubles, and the fact that your gearshift wouldn't go into reverse unless I put it in third first, and this and that. But I was going to keep you at least until over the summer, and then give you to a family member. It was gonna be great. Driving you was still my favorite thing to do.
But now, at 180,000 miles, you're dead. It started with a misfire; I gave you new spark plugs and wires. The check engine light went on again; I fed you premium gas. Still that light stayed on. And this morning, when I got in you, you made a weird noise when you started and you couldn't accelerate over 40 MPH. You could barely move at all. Apparently the timing chain guide broke. That's at least a $500 fix, Birdy. I'm not sure I could sell you for $500. I thought you would last me. I thought that, being a Nissan, you would get me to 250,000 miles easy. But you were a terrible car, perhaps horribly abused in the past, and now you're sitting lifeless on JR's lot. We have decided to give you to my husband's family so its mechanically-inclined members can attempt a fix. I don't even know if I'll miss you. I know I'll miss the stick shift. But the rest of you? I can't be sure. I'm bitter that my husband and I are now a one-car household and that any car we can afford right now would undoubtedly be worse than you were. I'm bitter that a little piece of metal broke and now I don't have a car. I'm upset about all the wasted money and stress. I don't know how I will remember you, if it will be positively or negatively. But you will always hold a special place in my heart for being my first car, that I bought with my own money, that I cried over and drove hard and really enjoyed and eventually gave up on.
Farewell, Birdy.
Your old owner,
Allison
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