Toto: A Eulogy

First cars are the stuff of legends. When I was 16 and about to get my driver's license, I started talking about getting a car. My wise father told me I should not get a car right away because I could drive my parents' cars when I needed to go somewhere and cars were money holes. I heeded the warning and put off buying a car until I was 21, living on my own, and had a job. The car in question, my first car, was a 1986 Chrysler Lebaron. It was small, white and a total dog. Hence, I named him Toto. Over the 8 months I owned Toto we had quite the adventures. I also apologized to him several times for buying him. As most of you know, I don't believe in luck, but if I did I would say I have the worst luck possible. Poor unfortunate Toto was no exception...

This is me and Toto a few days into our relationship. Within about 48 hours of this picture, he would catch on fire. It was a small fire under the hood and it was not my fault and it did not cause any damage, but still, it was only the beginning. Toto ran fairly well to begin with, that is after I took him back to the mechanic I bought him from to get the timing set. He came with one little problem though, a cracked tail light. The plexi-glass was still intact so I did not bother to fix it. One late evening on the Main Street in my home town of 900 residents, my local police officer pulled me over and gave me a ticket for a broken taillight. Apparently it gave off a funny glow and that can confuse other drivers. I bought red tape and fixed it up. Then I went out of town for a few days. When I came home I realized the tape had not stuck and needed to be redone. One problem, I had used all the tape. I decided not to drive the car until I got more tape, to avoid another ticket, but then came an evening when we needed to make a quick run to the neighboring city of West Point and there was no other choice. I was almost out of town when a cop passed me going the other direction and pulled me over. I was very distraught. First of all, there was no way he could have seen my taillight going the other way, so there was some other reason he had pulled me over. Secondly, now that he was parked squarely behind me, there was no way he was going to miss the taillight especially since I had broken all the plexi-glass out of it to tape it the first time. Needless to say, I got another fix-it ticket, a warning about not dimming my brights, and was required to bring my proof of insurance to the police station due to the fact that I had filed the permanent cards and put the temps in my car. None of that was really Toto's fault though, and once I discovered that super glue would hold red tape onto taillights really well, we were back in business.

Then Toto did something awful and totally uncalled for. He developed a leak in his break line. I was a quick learner on the subject of what exactly it feels like when it is time to get more break fluid and how to slow down without very responsive breaks.

I was on the verge of getting new break lines when I had a minor accident that rendered poor, unlucky Toto unfit for the road.

I prefer not to discuss the embarrassing details of my one and only serious accident. Let's just keep it simple and say I backed Toto into my brother Michael's pickup. It made the bumper of the pickup a little crooked, sent me to the Chiropractor with minor whiplash, and totally destroyed the back end of Toto. I cried. Toto crept everywhere he went, which was never very far. My job was only 2 miles from home on country roads, so I kept driving him to work. Then, I moved from the house down the road back to my family's house and ended up quitting my job. I guess Toto knew I did not need him to hang on to life any longer and 3/4 of a mile away from home he gave up the ghost. While I appreciated the fact that he did not die when I was on a cross-country road trip, I was not amused that my Dad had to use his pickup to push Toto the rest of the way home. It was decided he had in fact breathed his very last and we parked in in the weeds by the shed. A.K.A. we put him in the car graveyard. Until this week.

I saw an add in the Clipper looking for junk cars. We had hoped to haul Toto for iron, but never managed to get a trailer and time together. Nick came out Tuesday morning and all the kids took school off to watch him winch Toto carefully onto his trailer and take him away. I told Toto goodbye, apologized one last time for signing his title in the first place instead of letting an old lady buy him, and gleefully took my $150.00 to the bank. Even with his final gift to me Toto is helping me get places. The $150.00 went straight to my "ticket to Washington" savings. They say all is well that ends well, but I say as a warning, first cars might be the stuff of legends, but make sure your pocketbook is well padded and your health insurance up to date before attempting a legend like Toto.