Regime change.

I’ve been meaning to write this blog entry for awhile now, so this may not be news to some of you. But even though it happened two weeks ago, the glowy feeling inside probably won’t leave me for at least a couple of months.

::deep breath::

The VenJetta is finished. I won.

It started several weeks ago. The driver’s side window wouldn’t go down (again), and I brought the car to the shop to be fixed. Having already replaced the motor on every other window in the car, I expected to pay a couple hundred dollars and be on my way. Naturally, I was wrong. An inspection of the VenJetta’s inner workings revealed that there was over $1,000 worth of other things that needed to be fixed, or else I would die on the side of the road in the very near future. I asked them to fix only the absolutely necessary items, and brought the bill down to $860, which I paid for with my slowly accumulating (and constantly deferred) New Car Fund. I briefly wondered why I was not more upset by this development, and then I realized: the VenJetta has made me dead inside. I put “Buy a new car” on my To Do list and bought some Consumer Reports literature.

That week, a pervasive burning smell began to appear whenever the car was warmed up.

The next weekend, I was driving roughly 65 miles an hour on a rural highway when I felt a very subtle shift in pressure on the VenJetta’s accelerator. I didn’t think much of it until I tried to slow down for my turn, and that proved more difficult than usual. The car seemed to be getting too much gas, as if the accelerator or fuel-line injection system was stuck, and whenever I put it in neutral or depressed the clutch, the engine revved up to dangerous levels. I shoved it into various gears just to control the engine, but this was not right, and I wondered what would happen when I came to a stop. Then…just as I pulled into my destination parking lot, all the revving stopped and the VenJetta was back to normal. I looked around for Rod Serling and said mean things under my breath.

The following week, the dashboard would periodically start beeping, and then abruptly stop. There were no accompanying warning lights and, according to my owner’s manual, the car should not have known how to beep at all.

It was at about this point that I moved “Buy a new car” up to the tippy top of my To Do list.

Finally, sitting at a stoplight shortly thereafter, the VenJetta just stopped. The engine dwindled away, and I reflexively began fishing for my well-worn AAA card. I continued to try to restart the car with no luck and made one final, defeated call to my father before I called AAA. While on the phone with him, I gave the ignition one last turn and…it started. Oh, okay. Also: What the f***? I drove home, simultaneously grateful and irate, and tried not to feel like a battered wife.

The next day I took the car to the shop (again) where they spent three days trying to diagnose the problem. This process was hindered by the fact that they could not get the car to stall for them, primarily because the VenJetta is a LYING LIAR WHO LIES. Finally, they diagnosed a bad throttle body, and billed me at another $1000. I decided against that repair, because NO.

Two days later, I went car shopping.

That day did not begin well. I had tried to be discreet about the car-shopping thing, but I think the VenJetta found out anyway, and it was not happy. It staged one last stand, not about to go down without a fight.

On my way to meet my dad to start our shopping day, the VenJetta hit an invisible patch of ice from the previous night's snow and lost all traction. This was a surprising development, because I am a good winter driver and I was not turning, braking, or going fast. The VenJetta and I flew off the road and into a ditch at 35 mph, but (thankfully) I was able to gain enough control of the skid that I avoided street signs and cars and managed not to actually hit the embankment on the other side. So, no collision, but it took about five to ten minutes of creative wiggling to get out of the snowy ditch. Also, I think I may have swallowed my heart once or twice.

Now, I’d just like to make it clear here: the VenJetta actually tried to kill me. Not with its usual passive-aggressive psychological assault, but for REAL. Like, with gravity and physics. It was only 8:00 am, and I was already exhausted. I proceeded to my parents’ house and shook for awhile.

When my dad and I left to begin car-shopping, we walked out to the driveway and discovered that my off-roading adventure had caused the VenJetta to lose a hubcap and flatten a tire. The timing was impeccable, and I took a moment calculate how much of my trade-in value would be eaten up by a missing hubcap. Then I took another moment to let the wave of resentment pass, and consoled myself with the thought that my trade-in was probably shot anyway, what with the car being borne of Hellfire and all.

We stopped at a service station and filled the tire with air, then stopped at an auto parts store to buy new hubcaps (a full set of generic hubcaps is apparently one third of the price of a single replacement hubcap at a dealership). I am the only person I know who buys an entire set of new hubcaps and doesn't even keep them for 24 hours. After a car wash and a short blessing, the car was ready to be assessed.

There followed many hours of financing, test driving, haggling, relocating, more test driving, waiting, number-crunching, and perfecting our poker faces. Twelve hours of headache later, we engineered a good deal on a silver 2004 Toyota Camry LE in excellent condition. They paid me more than they should have for the VenJetta, because they did not look closely enough and nobody checked for Crazy. After all the paperwork was done and I no longer recognized my own signature, my dad and I sat in my shiny, shiny Camry and silently watched them take the VenJetta out back. Presumably to shoot it.

I’m experiencing a strange mix of emotions regarding the VenJetta’s demise. Immediately, of course, there is that sort of exhausted elation you only understand when a threat on your life has been lifted. There is vindication—a triumph of spirit born of years of oppression and psychological abuse. There’s the excitement of a shiny new car with fancy dials and a quietly powerful engine and electric everything. But buried slightly below the celebratory feelings is a vague…disquiet? Nostalgia? Guilt?

It’s weird, is all. It might be a touch of Stockholm or BWS, but there’s a little part of me that’s sad to see the VenJetta go. “Sad” may not be exactly the right word, because sweet Jesus, am I glad that car is gone. But the VenJetta was my car. We were so closely associated that I once received the following email from a branch coworker that was visiting on an out-of-state business trip:

Hey, [Meldraw], great meeting today. I really think we’re making headway on the new marketing plan.

As we were leaving the Omaha office today, we saw you driving off to lunch. We wanted to get close enough to wave, but we’re afraid of the VenJetta. We hope you’re still alive.

Talk to you next week.

There was no question that the VenJetta belonged to me, and I belonged to the VenJetta. It inspired frequent blog entries, dinner table discussions, and laughs. I mean, in addition to the tears and frustration and the bills and the mortal fear for one’s own life. No matter what my personal feelings toward the VenJetta were, I had to admit: it had personality, and I knew that personality inside and out.

Surprisingly often, I find myself wondering where the VenJetta is right now. I know it “went to auction” (the dealer could not sell it because its odometer was incorrect as a result of an entire instrument cluster replacement that cost the equivalent of two and a half black-market babies), but I don’t really know how those auction cars end up. Is it being driven around by some poor, unsuspecting soul? Has it been dismantled for parts, and is its living spirit now contaminating the bodies of poor, unsuspecting cars? Had it been dismantled for parts, but then said parts willed themselves back together with an evil determination not-of-this-world, like Christine, and now it’s coming after poor, unsuspecting me? Or is it just sitting all by itself in an empty lot somewhere, lifeless now that there is nobody to give it life? That last one makes me a little sad—yes, sad—because as much as I hated the VenJetta, it was somebody.

So, R.I.P. VenJetta. Or burn in Hell, whichever.