The time has finally come: I'm getting rid of my car. Many of you probably don't even know I own one. That's intentional; like the deformed child you keep locked in the attic, I've hidden it from public view — despite a certain affection for it. It's best for everyone this way.

I bought it during my last year of college, after it turned out that the transmission on the van I had inherited was made out of branches stuck together with mud. The UVA newsgroups had previously delivered unto me a spectacularly ugly freezer that was now successfully dispensing keg beer in a corner of my living room, so I decided to give them another shot. They came through.

This used to belong to the wife of a Chinese grad student. She didn't speak much English and he wasn't the talkative sort, so I didn't get the full story about how the front-end damage originally occurred. All I knew was that I was broke and needed a car that would last for six months. For $450, the price was right.

Well, here we are — roughly four years later and the goddamn thing still runs. It's been sitting at my dad's house since I moved into the city, though, and suffering for the neglect. This year it failed its inspection (five months after it was due), convincing me that we should finally part ways. Besides, I had paid its purchase price twice over in insurance fees, its parking stickers were still coming from Charlottesville, and I had no idea where the DMV thought it was garaged. All in all, the process of renewing my registration seemed increasingly likely to result in jail time.

Also, there was this:

Some guy smashed my rear window in order to steal my bike about 15 months ago (note the safety glass in the backseat, which I have still not cleaned up). It turns out that windows — even small ones — are expensive. It would have cost about half the value of the car to replace this one — more than it cost when a rearview mirror epoxying-gone-awry forced me to replace the windshield.

So I called up WAMU and arranged to donate the thing. I briefly considered giving it to a worthier organization than effete and increasingly incompetent public radio programmers — Melwood* came to mind, since they're always angling for auto donations. But the car's exhaust leak seemed likely to only make their jobs harder. Also, I like imagining that I'm somehow putting Michael Feldman in danger.

So NPR it is. I'm just waiting for the call from the towing company that will arrange final pickup. But first I decided to strip everything of value from its interior — NPR shouldn't have to clean up my garbage, and I'd much rather give my stereo and speakers to a friend. I thought I was just going to find a bunch of rain-damaged papers in the trunk, but it turned out to be a treasure trove of college-era paraphernalia (not that kind). I was amazed at just how much awesome crap I had accumulated.