One of the things I loved most about living in Prague was that we didn't need a car. For 95 percent of our daily life, we could get where we needed to go by hopping on a tram or subway--or, still better, just by walking there. I love that about cities, and I hate with equal fervor the inability to get anywhere or do anything without a car living in a smaller town. Granted, there were days when I longed to be able to hop in the car and go to the grocery store or to IKEA or whatever big errands we had, but we could rent a car when the urge got too strong, and we never had to worry about car maintenance or finding a good mechanic or buying car insurance.
How I miss that.
We were very fortunate upon our return to have two cars waiting for us. We had put Chip's Saturn into storage while we were abroad (despite the many, many people who told us that was a dumb idea, and I guess in a way it was but not having a car payment is worth being told we were dumb) and my parents were generous enough to pass along a beautiful Chrysler mini-van that had belonged to my late grandfather. As far as transportation went, we landed on our feet (so to speak) in our re-entry to U.S. car culture. Touch wood, we've been extremely lucky with these cars and have not had to do much beyond the routine maintenance, which we do assiduously.
But you know, even when you take good care of cars, there comes a point in ever vehicle's life when things start to go wrong. Just little things, but they can start to add up. It's compounded when you are in a fairly new place and don't know where to go to have things checked out. Or you think you've found a place to go and then they screw you over and you're left wondering where to go now. By the time you end up at (ugh) the dealership, you've already spent several hundred dollars trying to fix something elusive, and that's before the...shall we say...aggressive pricing for which dealerships are well known. Oh, and did we mention they won't be able to see me for two weeks?
Much like my computer (the "old" reliable iBook G4 purchased in October 2004 2003 [yipes!]), the cars in my life need to hold on for a while longer. OK, a lot longer. And it's not helping my naturally anxious tendencies to have these little problems that seem inevitably to lead to bigger ones. I need the car to do my job(s) just as I need the computer. A hundred thousand miles isn't a lot in a modern car, right? At least that's what I keep telling myself.
It would be a lot easier to swallow if I knew I could leave the car in the garage and just grab a tram when I needed to get somewhere.