Kermit is back.
Back when Oliver was born neither Kim nor I had an appropriate vehicle for a new parent. Mine was a two-door K-Car. Kim’s was not only two-door but stick shift as well. There is a reason why new parents do not have two-door cars in the age of child safety seats and that reason is that maneuvering a child in a safety seat into the back of such a car is a surefire way to turn your spine into a pretzel.
So after a month or two of that we decided that this needed to change. We did some looking around and eventually bought a 2000 Saturn LW wagon, brand new off the dealer’s lot – the first new car I ever owned, which isn’t saying much, since it was only the second car I ever owned, but it felt significant at the time. It was midnight green and had four doors – five if you counted the hatch in the back – and it was big enough to carry an entire soap show back when we were still running the craft fair circuit in the summers because academics don’t get paid in the summer and we still need to eat. We named it Kermit because it was green and things like that make sense when you’re a new parent and living on 35 minutes of sleep a night.
It was a grand vehicle, really. We took it all over the country and around Wisconsin, and it never let us down.
But cars age out and at some point we realized that the entire Saturn subdivision of GM had gone out of business, making replacement parts somewhat difficult to come by. Also, our children now had friends and Kermit was simply not big enough to haul them all at once – a discovery I made while rattling around the back cargo area at highway speed one night.
So we sold it to a friend of ours and bought the minivan, which continues to serve us well and can store immense amounts of both people and things. Seriously – you have no idea how much you can fit into a minivan until you try it. It’s probably not a coincidence that the van is TARDIS blue.
Lauren, it has to be said, was crushed when we sold the wagon. She loved that car and wanted it for herself. But she was four years away from getting her driver’s license at that point and we needed the money to put toward the van, so there you have it.
This summer we have all four of us home again, and with the country slowly opening up we all will have to leave the house to get to our various jobs – something that simply wasn’t true last year. We began to think that perhaps a third vehicle would be a good idea, something inexpensive and serviceable that we could use around town even if we weren’t going to take it on road trips.
And that’s when we found out that our friend was looking to sell Kermit.
“How much does she want for it?” I asked her sister, who is our main connection to this particular friend.
“I’ll ask.”
She eventually decided that if we paid for the transfer fees and such she would just give it to us. How can you turn down an offer like that?
It turns out there are a lot of transfer fees in Wisconsin, but it was still cheaper than buying a car elsewhere even when you factored in the work that the mechanic said needed to be done to it. Fortunately we were headed out of town to visit my mom around that time, so we just left Kermit with the mechanic and picked it up when we got home.
So now Kermit is back. Titled, tagged, insured, and street legal. The same seat covers that Kim made when the kids were little and liked to scuff up the seats in front of them. Two owners, one of them twice. Maybe 30k miles added in the seven years our friend had it, so it’s edging up toward 200k, but mechanically reliable and mostly comfortable once you adjust to the climb down into the driver’s seat. You forget how tall minivans are and how old you have gotten since the last time you tried to drive a station wagon.
Back when Oliver was born neither Kim nor I had an appropriate vehicle for a new parent. Mine was a two-door K-Car. Kim’s was not only two-door but stick shift as well. There is a reason why new parents do not have two-door cars in the age of child safety seats and that reason is that maneuvering a child in a safety seat into the back of such a car is a surefire way to turn your spine into a pretzel.
So after a month or two of that we decided that this needed to change. We did some looking around and eventually bought a 2000 Saturn LW wagon, brand new off the dealer’s lot – the first new car I ever owned, which isn’t saying much, since it was only the second car I ever owned, but it felt significant at the time. It was midnight green and had four doors – five if you counted the hatch in the back – and it was big enough to carry an entire soap show back when we were still running the craft fair circuit in the summers because academics don’t get paid in the summer and we still need to eat. We named it Kermit because it was green and things like that make sense when you’re a new parent and living on 35 minutes of sleep a night.
It was a grand vehicle, really. We took it all over the country and around Wisconsin, and it never let us down.
But cars age out and at some point we realized that the entire Saturn subdivision of GM had gone out of business, making replacement parts somewhat difficult to come by. Also, our children now had friends and Kermit was simply not big enough to haul them all at once – a discovery I made while rattling around the back cargo area at highway speed one night.
So we sold it to a friend of ours and bought the minivan, which continues to serve us well and can store immense amounts of both people and things. Seriously – you have no idea how much you can fit into a minivan until you try it. It’s probably not a coincidence that the van is TARDIS blue.
Lauren, it has to be said, was crushed when we sold the wagon. She loved that car and wanted it for herself. But she was four years away from getting her driver’s license at that point and we needed the money to put toward the van, so there you have it.
This summer we have all four of us home again, and with the country slowly opening up we all will have to leave the house to get to our various jobs – something that simply wasn’t true last year. We began to think that perhaps a third vehicle would be a good idea, something inexpensive and serviceable that we could use around town even if we weren’t going to take it on road trips.
And that’s when we found out that our friend was looking to sell Kermit.
“How much does she want for it?” I asked her sister, who is our main connection to this particular friend.
“I’ll ask.”
She eventually decided that if we paid for the transfer fees and such she would just give it to us. How can you turn down an offer like that?
It turns out there are a lot of transfer fees in Wisconsin, but it was still cheaper than buying a car elsewhere even when you factored in the work that the mechanic said needed to be done to it. Fortunately we were headed out of town to visit my mom around that time, so we just left Kermit with the mechanic and picked it up when we got home.
So now Kermit is back. Titled, tagged, insured, and street legal. The same seat covers that Kim made when the kids were little and liked to scuff up the seats in front of them. Two owners, one of them twice. Maybe 30k miles added in the seven years our friend had it, so it’s edging up toward 200k, but mechanically reliable and mostly comfortable once you adjust to the climb down into the driver’s seat. You forget how tall minivans are and how old you have gotten since the last time you tried to drive a station wagon.
It is a very manual car these days, though. The lock fobs don't work anymore, the hatch has to be opened with a key, and the turn signals don't click off until you do that yourself, but we like to think of this as Old School rather than antiquated. It sounds better that way.
Lauren is thrilled with Kermit's return, and she will probably be the one who drives it most.
To that end she is tricking it out to her specifications. It helps to have Car Buddies – the kinds of high school guys who love working on cars. My dad was one of those, but somehow I did not inherit that gene. Lauren has such friends.
They’ve already put new speakers into it. And plastic grass in place of the floor mats. And run a garland of ivy (complete with battery-powered LED lights) around the back cargo area.
The next step, apparently, is to paint flames along the sides of this two-decade-old Saturn station wagon and take it out to the strip to go cruising, which they still do here in Our Little Town. And I have to say there is part of me that is really, really looking forward to seeing that happen.
Welcome back, Kermit.
4 comments:
Delightful.
Thanks! :)
When the world seems to be tearing itself apart at the seams it is, uh, what's the word? It's right there on the tip of my tounge ... Oh, yeah - [consults Ewan] Delightful when something so simple and mundane can bring joy to all.
Happy motoring. Look out for the big trucks.
Lucy
Will do! :)
Sometimes the little things are what keep you going.
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