Fairwell to my Volvo 740 Turbo

@jerzgirl (9384)
United States
September 26, 2010 1:42pm CST
Five days ago, after yet another parking ticket for not moving my car to the other side of the street, I finally called a junker to take it off my hands. I couldn't afford to fix it to make it legal nor could I afford insurance on it if I did manage to get it fixed. It was just costing me more and more money. On top of that, the battery was dead and a tire was flat, so moving it wasn't all that easy. So, I called a junker in Philadelphia and they showed up yesterday afternoon, paid me $180, loaded it on to their flatbed and took it away. I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest. It was the last gift my mother ever bought me. She got it a year before she died because my previous car's shifter had seized up and I couldn't drive it. It was just sitting in my mother's yard useless. I ended up trading that to a mechanic in exchange for his doing repairs to my daughter's car. But, I was my mother's caregiver, so I needed a car to be able to take her to doctor's appointments and shopping or to dinner. The dealer who sold my daughter her car called and said he had a car he could sell us for $1000, so we went to look at it and bought it on the spot. It was a 1989 Volvo 740 Turbo station wagon. Unfortunately, it had problems that were masked just long enough to drive it about a month when they all started to show up. After two years, it didn't even pass inspection. Then we moved to this house where we had to park on the street and had to move the car every week in order for the street cleaner to come by.I wasn't used to parking on the street and wasn't driving the car because it failed inspection, so I kept getting tickets. It was annoying!! Anyway, the car is gone now, no more tickets, no more jump starts, but no more last gift from Mom, either. *sigh* It is what it is, I guess. We make decisions that are necessary even when they bring us a certain degree of angst. Then my daughter got angry that I got rid of the car because she thinks I should have repaired it, even though there's no way I could afford to insure it or repair it. I'm not working and she is. Sometimes, there is just no winning. Anyway, my friend Tom picked me up and we went to the unemployment office. I had wanted to talk to them about training and also turn in my old license plates to the DMV next door (that's a requirement here in New Jersey). The next day, he took me to the municipal court so I could pay the last two tickets I got with the money I was paid for the car. I owed $50, so still had $130 left. Not bad, although $180 isn't a lot to sell a 3500 lb car for. I liked it. Lots of room, lots of power for 4 cylinders (because of the turbo). It was like having a truck! Of course, I immediately got ANOTHER parking ticket when we went out for coffee that night. I parked in a "no parking between 4 & 6pm" zone in his car. Neither of us realized it or thought about it, so that was another $18 (half of the $38 ticket). I couldn't believe that I had just ridded myself of a ticket magnet only to learn it was ME who was the magnet, not the car! Have you ever had mixed feelings about something you knew you had to do?
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1 response
@Hatley (163772)
• Garden Grove, California
26 Sep 10
hi jkerzgirl oh yes I had mixed feelings for sure when we were made homeless and my son and the social worker were saying the best thing for now would be for me to come here to this tiresome retirement center'to me it was the most drastic thing to do, and surely there had to be some other way myson a nd I could find to live until he could get a new job. famous last words, mom it will just be for a few weeks. uh huh yeah right. its been one year and a half since he said that and he just got a job finally just three weeks ago,.Yes I had to do it as the only other alternative was just moving from one homeless shelter to anothere and I was 83 then with d iabetes a nd a bad foot so I gav e in and let me assure anyone who thinks I am here free no no no. It takes most of my social security and ssi check to pay the monthly room and board. and no I do not get free cable internet as one person suggested in a snippy way, I pay 39 dollars a month for it so I wo rk hard on mylot to make that kind of money,No I have no handouts no freebies.