Bye Bye Blue Beetle

Posted on 25 May 2009

The first hint that it might be time to look for a new car literally struck one day on the way to work. A large piece of the Beetle’s sun roof suddenly freed itself mid transit and bounced off my head. This was not the first thing to go on our 10 year old beetle, but it was personally the most painful. By the end of our time with car the glove compartment had fallen off, no cup holders remained, the driver side door sometimes refused to close, and of course I was now a bit scared to try and open the sun roof. The thing still ran though, and for the 12 miles back and forth to Newark everyday that was enough. It had only broken down once, a pretty impressive run for any car. A few weeks ago though, it became obvious that old Blue beetle was not long for this world. It had been burning a little oil for a long time, but one day while driving home, I noticed the car felt off. I checked the oil a found there was none, not a drop left in the engine. It had gone from burning a little oil to burning A LOT of oil.
Enough was enough; it was time to go car shopping.
Car shopping , while fun in a way, is also a massive time suck. So it wasn’t until the day I was to drive the beetle to trade it in that I really noticed that I was going to miss the old blue bug. We had that car for 10 years. It was the first grown up thing Dee and I did as a couple. We had stuffed more friends, family, and camping gear into that little car than I had thought possible. I can’t tell you how many times my head smacked against that rear window when someone closed the trunk and didn’t warn me (you know who are!). Well ok, I wasn’t going to miss that last part. But there was a history there.
Dee tried to give the car one last big hug. It was her first new car after all. I had been worried about Josh, he had always loved riding in the back of the beetle. But Josh far more practical than the rest of us just gave the car a “bye beetle” and a wave. Then asked when the new car was coming. At least one of us got it right.