So, yesterday morning I set out to hike a mountain - and I did! I went up 1500 ft!! It was exhausting and thrilling!!
But I got into a car accident on the way home - mechanical failure caused me to crash into a tree and spin out off the road. I'm unharmed, but my new friend Mr Grover is not.
Mr Grover had a long life, but I only knew him for just over a month. He was a great little car, and he took me from Rochester to New Jersey to Long Island to all sorts of places in New Jersey, including his final destination of Mount Tammany in Worthington State Forest. May he rest in pieces at the scrap yard.
Total amount I've spent on him:
Buying him off that college grad = $2,300
Car Insurance for six months = $581.90
In-Transit Plates = $12.50
Title, Registration, and NJ Sales tax = $277.50
NJ Drivers License = $24
Jumper Cables = $26.36
Towing = $85
Storage = $60
Cleanup, Labor, Yard, & Admin Fee (+tax) = $74.35
Taxi to Pay off the Towing Company = $20
Plus filling up his tank in PA on the way to NJ ($29.22), filling up in NY on the way back from Long Island ($42.08), and filling up in NJ before going to the mountains (??? I think around 33).
I'll get some money back from the scrapyard, but probably only $150 or so.
But Mr Grover was worth every cent (~$3565.91)! He was such a great car!!! I went to job interviews, visited friends, and had a whole lot of fun in that car!!! Besides, that's only $66 dollars over the asking price for it on Kelly Blue Book when I bought it!!! So talking down the original price of the car helped me out BIG TIME!!!
I love you Mr Grover, and I will miss you dearly in the coming days/weeks until I get a 'new' car or just decide to buy a bicycle instead (depends on where I get a job). And no bicycle will blast my old 'NOW' cds quite as loud as you did at that stoplight in Pennsylvania where that little old man gave me a funny look during that Aaron Carter song.
As for all of my human/people friends, I hope that you don't crash into a tree anytime soon, or suffer any kind of failure, be it mechanical, physical, mental, or just a really bad grade.
Tony, you'd better be taking good care of Super Grandma Princess Betsy!!! She needs to go on a bike ride at least once a week, and her chains will get rusty if you leave her outside during the rain!!!
It doesn't seem fair to lose your beloved wheels so soon, but we'll have to hope there's a better car waiting out there for you somewhere. In the meantime, it is good that you were not as severely affected by the tree as Mr. Grover was.
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