Goodbye Pathfinder

You guys, changing cars is hard work. It shouldn't be, you know, and yet it is.

When the check engine light came on last July, we already knew what to do. J-Man and I had talked about this a bunch. We weren't dumping any more money into the Pathfinder. We loved that car. It wasn't about feelings, it was a practical choice. We've had it since 1999 and despite the fact that I learned to drive in it, or that it carried me back and forth to college countless times, or saved the day as our second family car when we became northern virginians, and transported both PDG and MDG home from the hospital and to and from daycare a zillion times, it had to go. It was a sad day.

Also, it should be noted, it was terrible timing. Like, we almost decided to abandon our carefully discussed action plan because that stupid light came on just two days before our planned trip to Ocean City. We couldn't very well drive a dying car to the beach. But we couldn't fit Grandma S in the back of our bitty Volvo for three hours either. We were stuck, and there was only one thing to do: used car shopping-palooza.

Oh, I'm still patting myself on the back months later. We were pretty amazing. J-Man made the appointments, I took Grandma S and the boys with me to wait while I test drove. That evening I took J-Man back to my favorite one, we signed the papers, and drove off with this bad boy.

I love our Odyssey. Love it. Those doors! The heated seats! The auxiliary port! And, oh my goodness, the trunk!!! It's fabulous. The boys love it. PDG can climb all the way in without me doing anything but the final crotch buckle. MDG has endless places to throw his shoes and socks (which somehow still makes me smile instead of grimace. Crazy kid.). Yeah, there's a whole bunch of dings and scratches, but it's not going in a beauty contest. It's just taking me and the littlest G's to school and back every day, and the occasional trip out 66. I didn't realize what a life changing event a minivan could be, but I might never look back.

Of course, that's only half the story. That was the buying. The selling.... oh my, the selling.

Our plan was to donate it and write it off on our taxes. We ran that poor Pathfinder to the ground, so we knew we'd get hardly anything for it, and time is worth something when you have two kids. It's worth a lot. Instead of following our plan, though, we got swayed by our salesman Tony to let him sell it to a guy who was already looking for a Pathfinder. He sounded so certain and he'd told us his whole life story and shown us his beautiful wife who came to the US with him thirty years ago and yes, Tony, sell this car. We won't tell anyone at your dealership how you're doing it off the books. Go, make money, give us most of it, and it'll be grand.

Ugh. Tony.

He didn't have this supposed friend. He did have a craigslist posting no fancier than what we could have done. He did come by and borrow the key to let people check it out. He also did tell us it was in bad shape (duh!) and he'd need to lower the price (which he had set, not us). Then, he also flaked on the days we were supposed to all meet up and sell it. When J-Man called to say we sell it by Monday or we donate it, he had the nerve to show up on Monday with the buyer and HALF the money. Say what?

Tony....

Finally, waiting for the rest of this buyer's money to get in from Africa (that's all we knew, and we just prayed he wasn't getting conned in a Nigerian prince scam) we decided to cut Tony out of the picture. Apparently he was taking a commission from us and from the buyer on this cheap sale so we promised him his cut and told the buyer to come on a given day, with or without Tony, and as long as he had the rest of the money, the title was his. Tony, nervous we'd cut him out of the transaction, managed not to flake out that day, and finally, finally, finally, three weeks later, that car was out of our driveway.

We were super annoyed, but in the end, we have a van. We love that van. And one day, when we've driven it into the ground and our boys have destroyed the insides with their milk cups and sand deposits and muddy cleats and melted crayons, we'll remember this story and just follow the plan to handle things all by ourselves.