Goodbye Green Goblin

I sold the first car I've ever owned today.  I shouldn't be sentimental about a car, but gosh, I've known my car longer than I've known my husband.  At that point in my life, it was the biggest purchase I had ever made, but I was finished school and finally had the money since I'd found a full-time job.  I bought a used forest green Toyota Corolla I found online, which a co-worker at the time nicknamed the Green Goblin. 

Despite being such an ardent supporter of public transportation, I will admit I loved the freedom of having my own car.  The days of having to ask for rides from friends, which became particularly imposing during a six-week-long transit strike, were suddenly a distant memory.  My commute to work was reduced by a half an hour in each direction.  I always knew I had a ride home late at night from parties.  The inconviences of dealing with snow emergencies or trying to fit an oil change in during my lunch hour did not outweigh the everyday convience of going where I wanted when I wanted. 

I was ready to drive the Green Goblin until it died, but Chris and I decided we needed to be a little more practical with kids.  At 11 years old, a trip to the shop always seemed to hang over my head, along with the potential cost of the inevitable repairs.  I knew it was time to upgrade to a more reliable vehicle.

We also sought a car that better fit out family.  Since I'd bought the Corolla before I had kids, I wasn't thinking about how well car seats fit in the back seats or how much trunk space was available for hauling strollers and all the extra stuff kids require.  I discovered when Oliver came along that if his rear-facing car seat sat behind the driver's seat, I was the only one short enough to drive the car.  The trunk could comfortably fit a standard-size double stroller, but not much else. 

Keeping in my mind that Chris commutes to the Wisconsin border and back each day and that we want a third kid and will potentially need to fit three car seats comfortably in the back, we opted for a Toyota Camry.  It's a foot wider than my Corolla, has a large trunk and still gets Corolla-like gas mileage.  And it's new.  A first for Chris and me.  I felt lucky my Corolla even had power windows and suddenly we were buying a car that had a navigation system, a back-up camera and a button you can push to start the car.  The only thing that could have made Chris more excited is if we had been buying a boat. 

The Green Goblin is probably headed to the big car heaven in the sky, but I have some good memories.  The car took a friend and me out West for an extrordinary national park tour, ferried me countless times up to Duluth to visit Chris during the early stage of our relationship and got me safely to the hospital when I was in labor with Oliver and decided to drive myself to Labor and Delivery.