My Serendipity Car

I have a cute little white Sunfire named Serendipity. I know, I know you read the reviews and they're supposed to run awful. Horrible reliability etc. Except this car runs better than my Honda did. Better than my Toyota (which incidentally was better than the Honda), and is actually on par with my Firebird. Of course it doesn't hold a candle to the Birds performance. That was the car that I used to drag race and my V8 5.7L bad boy was affectionately named Jap Sap. You may not know it but there is a fair degree of animosity between the muscle cars and the rice rockets.

Ok, got off track. But boy I do love cars. Now back to how my car came to be known as Serendipity.

Years ago my parents bought a little red Toyota truck. They said it was mine until I finished school. This was so I didn't have to get a second job to afford a car payment in addition to rent etc. all while going to school. The only stipulation was that upon graduation I was to return it, and let me tell you I despised that little 4 cylinder POS. It had no gumption and wasn't fun to drive AT ALL. Also, it broke down all the time and since I couldn't afford to fix it my parents were stuck with the bill. So now not only was the truck a POS, so was I. In October 2003 I came to terms with the fact that this truck was it. I stopped scheming to buy a new vehicle and decided to drive it til the wheels fell off, or my parents demanded it's return. I had suffered some financial setbacks (my rent had increased while my income had drastically decreased) and felt that all I had to look forward to was debt. I looked at that crappy red truck that didn't even have power steering and said, "well babe. I guess it's just you and me."

I then promptly totalled it.

I had no car now and no money and pretty much the only word you could use to describe my state of mind was Hysterical. Absolutely bloody hysterical. My dad's a big one on lessons so he decided to make it very clear to me that I would be recieving absolutely no help from him. Just to put things in perspective for you let me give you a brief run down of my situation. I was making 10.oo an hour, going to school, paying 905.oo in rent alone, and couldn't even afford health insurance. When he told me that there would be no help forthcoming I nodded my head and took it like a man. A girls gotta grow up sometime.

Unless she's a momma's girl.

My mom got a loan for five grand and said go out and find the best car you can find. Pay me back after you graduate. YAY. I love moms. So I researched everything to a hilt and finally bought a 94 Honda Del Sol in excellent condition for the cheapest price I could haggle. YAY. Then the car broke down. And my mom fixed it. Then it broke down again, and again my mom fixed it. For all of that though the car was actually doing wonderful for it's age.

Then it got stolen.

Now because of the model type that my car was it was actually quite rare and was valued higher than blue book. My insurance was livid with me but they finally paid me out at over 8,000. That's right. The car was worth more than I paid for it.

Not only that, but all the vehicles I was looking at were around five grand and each and every single one of them gave me a very bad feeling. There's no explaining it, they just didn't feel right. Until I saw Serendipity. She cost me 1900, has more miles than the Honda, gets better gas mileage, lower insurance, and has never broken down on me. I took the money that I had netted from the Honda and paid my mom back. One month after I owned her I found a chain shoved between the backseat. When I pulled it out it was a picture of Jesus. Just another reason to thank God.

So why do I bring this up? Because a friend of mine is pregnant. Now I am completely pro choice and I do agree with her that she is young (mid twenties). But she also has had medical issues that caused the doctors to warn her that it would be very difficult for her to concieve. Simply put she feels that she is in no way able to afford a child right now and it is simply not in her plans.

Now plans are good and plans are great but you can't plan life. Things happen. If I had my way I'd still be driving that POS red toyota and be swimming up to my eyeballs in debt. When that truck got totalled I thought there was no way I'd ever be able to afford a nice car or pay my parents back. But look, here I am with a REALLY cute car that runs terrific and I LOVE it! I know a cars not a baby but bear with me, I'm trying to create an analogy.

Maybe it's my age but all I could think about was the fact that this girl is in a good relationship and her and her boyfriend live together and have discussed marraige. Not only that but she has tons of family who would be willing to help out in any way that they could. She's not sixteen, she is in her mid twenties and I know girls in worse situations that made excellent mothers. Plus there's always adoption, which is another topic which I will mention was discussed. There are other factors that make this situation more complicated that I won't go into here. What I will say is that in some ways this is a miracle baby.

My goal with her was not to push her in any direction. Just remind her that there are options. I hug her goodbye and I tell her that no matter what she decides she will make the right decision and God knows that, but while I am hugging her I am staring at my car thinking, that is my serendipity car, is this your serendipity baby?