Cars

So I have been borrowing my Mom's car for the summer.  When Rachael and Seuao bought their new vehicle (an as-yet-unnamed gorgeous Mazda CX-9), they turned over Frank to my Mom.  Frank is the name I gave Rachael's Honda CR-V.  It got the name Frank because Frankenstein's monster is green, and he is almost human, just like the green CR-V is almost an SUV.  Gigi, our '93 Toyota Corolla is a decent car and gets terrific gas mileage, but she has no air conditioning.  I overheat very easily, so we decided to switch out Gigi for Little Blue for the summer.  BTW, I can't come up with a different name for John's old Taurus, though technically she is Little Blue #2, with the Tempo being the original Little Blue.

 voilà Gigi

What's sad is that the '95 Taurus was an upgrade compared to Gigi in almost every aspect: Little Blue has half the miles Gigi does (she hit 200,000 in July).

Yes, I pulled over on the freeway to take a picture of the 200,000.  It was a little scary, but I had been working for it for a long time!  We purchased Gigi with about 172,000. 

Anyway, Little Blue has a/c, a working dome light, a clock and radio where you can see the numbers, automatic windows and locks, and she allegedly has cruise control, though I was never able to get it to work.  Gigi has none of those.  However, Gigi gets 32 mpg in the city and about 38 on the freeway, while Little Blue gets between 23-25 mpg.  I'm doing so much driving these days, and the hottest days of the year are most likely over, so I think it's time to switch back.

Well, last week we got a mailer for a big used car sale, and they offered free movie tickets for those who came to check it out.  I did go (and I didn't get suckered into a test drive) and I got the movie passes and went to drive home in Little Blue when the key broke off in the ignition.  Now, this is not her first offense; there are several broken keys on the ring already.  Even so, I messed with it for a few minutes and was able to get it started and drive it home.  I didn't drive for the rest of the weekend, so I forgot about it.

Enter Tuesday morning, 6am.  I have Benji buckled in the car and I'm ready to go to work.  I go to start the car and . . . oh, yeah.  I can't.  I must have messed with it for at least 15 minutes, all to no avail.  So I called AAA, and they sent out a locksmith.  He had to pull out the ignition, and even then he couldn't get the broken key out.  So he ended up replacing the ignition and giving me two new keys.  And he didn't charge me anything; he said my membership would cover it.  *whew*  Thank you, Granny.  You saved the day.  I ended up getting to work about an hour late, so it wasn't too catastrophic.

In any case, I have enjoyed driving Little Blue, but I'll look forward to filling up less-often.  So we are going to Logan on Friday to switch back . . . just in time to get Gigi inspected and registered.  Yipee.