Watching my old car of 30 years being towed away was one of roughest days I've suffered through...
Certainly up there with the deaths of my grandparents and pets (except, well maybe the deathly chill that I felt after getting the phone call that Grandma had died), and also those work-related times when certain bastards have had an "existential risk" type go at me...
Here's the car halfway down the driveway, driving past the row of pretty spring flowers...
It was quite a mix of emotions watching it be towed out of the garage...
Moments of joy:
* Getting to hear the familiar sound of the starter motor giving a few weak raspy cranks for the first time in years (but what would be the last time too though), as the guy tried to start the engine to do a "powered recovery"
* Watching it drop the tow several times, like it was resisting leaving us
The guy was at the end of the driveway (and couldn't back up his truck any further due to the tree), and had to chain up 2 straps to the towbar on one end (and the towing cable on the other) to tug it out from the far end of the property.
* Seeing it rolling smoothly out of the garage into the warm sunny day again, and so quickly too. Even more so that under the warm spring skies, it was still overall in as much of a VERY good condition as ever! (Heck, as we'd been storing it in the garage out of the wind, rain, dust, and pollen, it was actually looking much BETTER than it had been for many years, and/or certainly better than it would if it had been outside for the past decade)
* Getting to see it in its entirety again back on the driveway, and able to give it a good look again from the front (which I hadn't been able to do the last few days)
Saddest Moments:
* Watching its front tires go flat by the end of the driveway (from all the hard cranking the guy was doing to straighten it out - Hah, proof that driveway is hard to back out down!). It's like the car was digging in its heels in to stay put! Protesting that it had been woken from its peaceful retirement in the garage, and being kidnapped.
* Watching it finally hauled up on top of the truck, front wheels flabby (and front bowed down as a result), and driver-side front window wound down... It was like it was looking rather defeated and pitiful, begging me to do something to save it...
* Finally, watching that truck turn out the driveway with my baby on top of it looking all broken down, and speeding away down the road out of sight! 😭😭😭
~~~
While I did manage to calm down enough by mid afternoon to try and get some work done yesterday (i.e. only some light code reviewing was possible... trying to focus on my own coding was impossible as my eyes were sore from all the crying since the night before).
When it came time to go to bed, I had decided to try to call it an early night as I was feeling tired...
Big mistake... Last night involved one of the worst bouts of insomnia that I've had... Ugh!
Perhaps a few things kept me up last night:
* Wondering if I should've tried just pushing it out of the garage at least once these last few years to get it up started and down to the mechanic at least one more time...
* Wondering if maybe I should've tried earlier to even get the mechanics to show me how to fix the things that kept breaking
/ and or generally trying to keep it going for a bit longer
* Wondering why I didn't decide instead to stall for time and get it trucked to my other places garage (at the expense of losing internal access for a while) to buy time...
* Then later wondering:
1) Why I didn't start trying to create a 3D replica of it, or get a physical diecast type one while I still had it with me, so I had easy access to extra reference material - Annoyingly I only really started checking yesterday afternoon, only to find that trying to find something even partially close to my particular one would be very very hard! Damn!
2) Why I didn't think of the option of advertising it as a "project car" for someone to do up as a EV conversion - If they'd let me access it or have 1st rights to buying it back... (to be honest, I had once dreamed of having that conversion done, but I already have too many projects pending to investigate as is, they it would likely have languished for another decade)
* Finally, feeling very sad that if it hadn't started being stripped in prep for destruction (or that the process had already started), that it was already likely too late (i.e. sitting in some random scrapyard somewhere, in the rain, likely with that window still wound down while it started raining last night), and a massive waste resources as it was still over 90% in a very good condition - Certainly much better than I had been assuming / expecting...
Argh..... 😭😭😭😭😭
~~~
On that note - speaking of model cars:
If anyone coming across this thread knows anyone who happens to have a "spare" version of something like one of the following (or something similar that looks even *more* like my photo from earlier in the thread) that they would be willing to sell to me (OR, if you manage to find a link of one up for sale now), please do let me know!
Alternatively, am also happy to hear from any artists who'd accept a commission to build me a custom one too - I do have a bunch of reference material saved up - maybe never quite enough, but enough for a decent scale model I'd think.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/TOMYTEC-Limited-Vintage-LV-N08c-Corolla/dp/B08F86HKXW
https://www.ebay.com/itm/226613716364
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