the husk of the Gray Wagon sat twisted and ruined next to the dumpster in my parking lot for a week.
when i had it dumped there by Big Bear, after i had to pay the extortionists at the impound lot to get it out, i told my apartment management that it would only be there for a week.
they're kinda dickish about keeping broken down cars in the lot because if they allow one, they'll have fifty overnight.
there are a lot of Mexicans around here and you know how Mexicans are about keeping dilapidated old cars on their lawn.
it's like, a status symbol down in Mexico, i hear.

what do you do with a 1997 Volvo Wagon that's has it's rear driver's side quarter entirely crumpled in?
try to sell it for scrap, i guess.
there are maybe twelve auto salvage yards in Albuquerque but after spending an hour on the phone calling them all, only three were willing to give me any money for the thing.
i guess the other ones were too good for my old Gray Wagon.
“1997! ha!”
the price quotes i got were between $100 and $150 dollars.
most would dispatch a tow truck to come and pick up the Wagon for me, but since i have a towing package with my cell phone, i talked a guy into giving me $200 if i have the car towed to him myself.
two hundred dollars.
i paid $7,000 dollars for the Gray Wagon up in Portland.
now, because of one fucking drunk, uninsured driver, i'm out $6,800.
still, i guess $200 dollars is better then nothing.
slightly better.

i was going to have the car towed away on Saturday but the PSE decided she would rather have a fight with me then be useful and i didn't want to wake up before noon so it didn't get done.
Sunday nothing happens because it's the Lord's Day, and i guess it's in the bible not to buy wrecked cars on the sabbath.
Monday was the last day i could keep the Gray Wagon in the apartment parking lot.
well, i'm sure it wouldn't have been much of a problem to keep it there a few more days but the sign i wrote and taped to the windshield said “i'll have this gone by 5, October” and i am a man of my word.
sometimes.

before i had the car hauled of to the wrecker, i wanted to see how feasible it would be to maybe cannibalize some parts out of the dead Gray Wagon for potential future use.
we'd already removed all the weapons and emergency kit of basic needs like toilet paper and tooth paste and we'd already transferred the roof rack and cargo pod to the Red Wagon, but maybe we could use a spare catalytic converter or a Johnson rod or a regulator diode and it would be better to pull them out now while we can then give the car to a junkyard and have to pay piecemeal to buy our parts back at some unforeseen later date.
unfortunately, neither the PSE nor i know much of a damn thing about cars.
we don't even have any tools besides a hammer, pliers and an interchangeable head screwdriver i found in Reno, but i've used that screwdriver more as weapon then in any sort of productive handyman capacity.

my biggest concern, really, was the interior of the Gray Wagon.
that car looks so nice inside with the gray leather interior.
if one of my cars had to get wrecked by an uninsured drunk i would have much rather it be the Red Wagon.
the Red Wagon is three years newer, but it's got an economy interior with mechanical cloth seats while the Gray Wagon was top-of-the-line in 1997.
but that's a terrible thing to say.
the Red Wagon is all i've got now, and i've got to start treating her with more respect.

normally the PSE drove the Red Wagon and i drove Gray, but we've only got one car now and if i'm going to be driving the Red Wagon, then things have got to change.
i can't be driving around in cloth seats like a fucking schnook.
i wanted to see about maybe swapping out the Red Wagon's seats with the Grays.

i woke up early and made some calls to local upholstery shops.
quotes i got were ridiculous.
three hundred bucks, six hundred bucks. one lady even had the nerve to quote a figure in the two-thousand dollar range.
get bent.
eventually, the best plan i was able to come up with was to deal with the local Volvo shop, not Swedish Volvo Corporate but an independent Volvo specialist i've dealt with once or twice before.
but they couldn't give me a good quote over the phone.
i had to bring the car in for them to be able to say what's what, but of course, schlepping a broken down, immoveable, third-of-a-ton vehicle from one side of town to another is never easy.
lucky, i've got that damn tow package.
that thing has proven to be invaluable in all my years of owning shit cars.

i called Roadside Assistance and they dispatched a tow truck to my parking lot.
the guy loaded up the Gray Wagon on his flatbed and we held a funeral procession to the independent Volvo shop.
when we got there the tow man unloaded my broken down car and i went to speak with a guy named Mike about seeing what he could do about my seats.
he looked inside the Gray Wagon and he looked inside the Red Wagon and then he looked at me and asked “whatta ya gonna do with yer broken car?”
“scrap it, i guess.”
“i'll do this job for free if you sign the car over to me.”
sure! save me the trouble of having to have the car towed one more stop to the wrecker.
i signed over the title which i was smart enough to have taken along, just in case, and Mike and his guys set to work putting some of the Gray Wagon's luxurious interior into the cheep hull of the Red Wagon.

of course, Mike is getting the better end of this deal by far.
there are all kinds of valuable working parts left in the Gray Wagon that he can extract, clean and sell.
he'll probably make no less then $2,000 with all the markup shops charge, but i'm in no possession to make use of these parts myself so if Mike wants the thing, then he can have it.
if it curries me any good will with the people who know how to work on cars then good on us all.
plus, now the Red Wagon looks that much nicer on the inside, and that makes a whole lot of difference to me.

while the Red Wagon was at the shop, i had them keep her for an extra day to do some general maintenance work.
the break pads and routers were grinding and needed replacing, plus when they were giving the car a once-over they noticed my B+ cable was about to catch fire.
i don't know what the devil a B+ cable is or how or why it can come so close to being so flammable but i guess i'm glad the Independent Volvo guys caught it.
now that we're down to only one car between the two of us, the last thing we need is for it to spontaneously burst into flames.

fortunately, we had the time to spare for the two days it took to get the Red Wagon reupholstered, road worthy and fire retardant again.
the PSE had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week off from work because she can only work night shifts now so she's been getting shit hours.
she used to be available for the 5:00pm to 10:00pm and the 11:00am to 5:00pm shift but i need the car for school in the afternoons so she's missing out on all the days she would have been able to work lunchtime deliveries.
lost wages will be another thing we sue for if this uninsured drunk-driving cocksucker ever shows up for court.
so the PSE's been lazing around the house, playing Ocarina Of Time and i've been getting to-and-from my colleges and the mechanic via Go-Ped.
it's fun to be out ridin' around, but the Go-Ped has seen better days; the chain slips off the gear spokes every few miles and i have to pull over and put it back on and my hands get all greasy and i've cut up a few knuckles.

the cost for the Red Wagon's break job, router job and replacing the B+ cable came to $666.79 total.
of course, that's $666.79 we can't afford to spend and that puts our bank balance down to around $231 dollars in both accounts, but what could we do?
you have to do what has to get done, and in the mean time we'll just have to keep our eyes wide open for more loot somewhere.
i'll let you know how that works out.

and so now we're down to only one car.
the Grey Wagon is laying dead and ruined in a lot somewhere, an organ donor for other Volvos.
it's sad to see her go. out of my life forever.
she was the best car i've ever had.
i will miss her as much as any guy can miss an inanimate object he's sat in for two years.
i've always been overly sentimental about things like this.
i have a famously schmaltzy disposition.
it might have something to do with being an only child.
i had a lot of friends as a kid who were stuffed animals.

//[thanks, friends]