She's being taken away today. She was never the prettiest thing going, never got much attention from anyone, including me. But a more dependable ride you'll never have. Yes, they are coming to take my old '93 Escort away.
Now let me bore everyone including myself with some mention of my vehicle history. In high school, I had a tough little '66 Mustang. Vroom, vroom. A couple of years later, in college and working, keeping it going was more time consuming than I could afford. So I sold it to my brother and purchased a brand spank-me new one. Why these people gave me a loan at my age with the paltry job I had, I'll never know. But it was also a Mustang and a pretty cool ride. Cool except it had no air condition in it. Okay to deal with in Virginia but not okay when I moved to Georgia. So with the car now a few years old and it has no air, it's time to get a new one.
This coincided with two events. My grandma died and my parents bought another vehicle to add to their fleet. I mentioned wanting a new car and they offered me one of theirs. Yep, a '93 Ford Escort, burgundy, then five years old. The plus side was that they would take the $2k my grandma left me in a straight swap for it, it only had 30,000 miles on it and it had air too. The down side? Well like I said it's a Ford Escort, not quite a glamour ride for someone out chasing women around.
Really it came down to did I want to be a responsible adult for once and have a car with no car payment that would last me a few years or would I go in debt for a sharp ride and not start saving to own my own house like I wanted to.
The adult won out. In less than four years I put 80,000 miles on that sucker. I took trips, I ran all over Atlanta daily, run, run, run. It never whimpered or whined or failed to perform. I gleefully used it to take my friends to pick up their "fancy" rides from the repair shop. It got me through a woman or two or five. You have to work harder to impress a young lady when you pull up in a modest car but heh, who wants a woman who will "do you" just for your car anyway? ahem.
As I finally moved into a house, with the backseat down it helped me move in, I hauled mulch and trees and shrubs and you name it and it never failed me. Finally though at the 110,000 mark it started just giving out. Then I bought my glam Ford Ranger which I love.
Just Saturday I was loving cleaning and washing my truck. I never spent that kind of time with the Escort, I just didn't care. Despite my neglect it served me well and did all I could ask of it. The past year it's been stuck in the garage, again as always neglected. I toyed with selling it but in the end I am just donating it to a charity and today they come and pick up and take it away. Even now it will be there to help in some way. I took a picture of it (for tax write off purposes) last night and you know if not for that the old girl would have never been photographed or in any way remembered likely.
But how symbolic it was of my own personal changes and growth in decision making.
So, so long, Miss Escort may you have a good retirement after your years of service and since I never said it before "thank you".