Goodbye to the Kia

This is my car, the Kia Sephia, known to some as Sophie, known to some as the Fear No Art Mobile, known quite often to me as my $&%@#*%&! car.

It was made in 2000.  I bought it in 2009.  For two and a half years, it drove me to class at Edinboro University, took me to dance rehearsal in Erie, PA, carried me to the airport, and once, all the way to Louisville, Kentucky and back.

It also sometimes refused to start for no discernable reason, and I’d have to call my then-boyfriend to come bail me out of the Wal-Mart parking lot or the sketchy Erie neighborhood or wherever.  The driver’s side sun visor came loose and dangled distractingly until I ripped it off.  In the winter, all the doors froze shut, and even when I managed to get one open, it wouldn’t shut again until the car warmed up.  I’d spend a good ten minutes driving slowly through the ice and snow, leaning all the way over to the passenger side, holding the door shut because it was the only door that would open in the first place.

The best thing?  One time the timing belt snapped when I was waiting at a red light in downtown Erie, and I had to flag all the other cars around me until a tow truck came to rescue me.

Now I’m donating the Kia to charity.  It has sat in my dad’s driveway for four months, and it has failed inspection, and I think it’s time for it to go. 

I guess this is a little bit bittersweet, which is probably the case for most people when they get rid of their first car, because it’s been with me for a while and has seen me through a lot of things, blah blah blah, etc. 

It’s also bittersweet because originally, I kept the car so I’d have a way to get around whenever I visited Pennsylvania. 

And when I finished my degree in Chicago, I reasoned, I’d have a car when I moved to some little place less public transit-friendly than this city.

But things have changed since then.  I don’t plan on leaving Chicago anytime soon.  I have a full-time job.  I have friends.  I’m getting to know the city a little better all the time.

So, donating the Sephia is a little bit like cutting the last of the apron strings.  Even if I wanted to move back to Pennsylvania, not having a car there would make it that much more impractical.

I put my kayak on my car this summer just to prove I was strong enough to do it by myself.  Scratched my car all to heck in the process, but I got it done.

Goodbye, fussy little car!  I don’t have the slightest idea what happens to cars that are donated to charity.  But wherever you end up, I hope they treat you nice.