Good Grief

I sold my car today. No big deal, really, as folk sell cars all the time. Except, this one is kind of a big deal. The car I drove before this one packed in and died exactly the day after my dad died so, with the family’s blessing, I took my dad’s. I’ve been driving it ever since and I’d come to think of it as an old warrior, a diesel-guzzling battleship of the road, with battle scars and miles on the clock and age-defining rust to go with it.

Mechanically it was mainly sound. In recent times, the boot has become sticky to the point of being stuck, despite me YouTubing it, replacing first a fuse and then buying a part before giving up at the baffling complexity of it all. I’d only have made the issue ten times worse, so I just got used to having a boot that couldn’t be used. You shoulda seen me that day in the car park at work, in front of all the parents, climbing through the folded down seats and underneath the still-attached parcel shelf to get to a box of books. A particular low, that was.

Adam & The Ants – Car Trouble

My daughter is buying her first car, so I suggested to the garage that mine might make a reasonable down payment as part of a trade in. After the car salesman had stopped laughing at the age and mileage of my old car – the car that gets me here to there every day without so much as a hiccup (apart from the random squeal that comes from the back offside on occasion, or the time the heating failed to work and I had an actual hypothermic episode while driving in the snow one winter) – he offered me little more than the cost of my season ticket for the football. “It’s missing a bumper trim,” he happily pointed out, as if that was the reason the car was seemingly worth so little.

That bumper trim nearly cost me my life a couple of Novembers ago, when I zigzagged around a big plastic barrel that had fallen from a lorry, only to drive straight across the top of the second and third ones. Rrrrrrippp went the underside of my car as I ground to a halt at the Moorfield roundabout and held up all the traffic trying to get in and out of Kilmarnock during rush hour. It was a passing policeman who tore the half-on bumper trim off. “That’s useless, mate,” he said helpfully. Apparently it’s not that useless when you come to sell it though. Appalled at the cheek of the salesman’s offer, the minute he and my daughter had left the forecourt on a test drive of what will be her new car,  I logged straight on to a well-known car dealer who pride themselves on buying any car and booked an appointment.

Their valuation was significantly higher. Then they saw the car, with its dings and pings and musty smell and moisture inside one of the headlamps. Their valuation dropped considerably, yet the maximum price was still better than what the garage had offered. It wasn’t enough though. I had a price in mind and my car – my dad – was worth more than either of these grinning bandits were willing to give me.

Paul McCartney – Check My Machine

Anyway, after some internet research and an online car auction. I had a buyer. He turned up and straight away began looking the car over. I stood there like a spare part as he ran his finger along the body, peered into the engine and looked it over the way an Amsterdam tourist might check out the wares in the windows before deciding to part with their cash. This old girl had a noticeable bumper scratch – a crack, if I’m being honest – the result of a bad reverse a year ago. The prospective buyer noticed it but didn’t address it. We went for a drive. Mercifully, neither the offside squeal or the soft tyre warning light came on – I’ve two slow punctures on perfectly roadworthy tread-heavy tyres and I was damned if I was replacing them – and the old battleship drove as smoothly as the day it first left the forecourt. There was a bit of haggling from him, of course, and eventually an acceptance from me; an acceptance not only of the sale price but of the fact that the last physical remains of my dad are going.

When tidying out the car at the weekend, I unexpectedly found a couple of my dad’s old capos. How I hadn’t found them in the 7 years I’ve driven the car is anyone’s guess, but there they were, two wee remnants of my dad’s life as a travelling folkie, lying in a wee cloth bag at the bottom of the boot (I discovered last week that you can open it manually with a screwdriver should you wish). One is a banjo capo, so that’s useless to me. The other, a guitar capo, has already been tested and is doing a fine job. It seems the auld fella is still here, reassuringly right at the end of my fingertips as I look out to an empty driveway.