New Year, New Car?

My car seems to be falling apart piece by piece. As some of you may know, my horn stopped working a while back. It’s some kind of connection problem in my steering wheel. Then, my passenger window broke and James had to replace the window motor. Shortly after that, my driver side window broke. James replaced the motor on that side too but it broke again so he decided to temporarily rig it in the up position until he finds “a better motor.” Somehow, I don’t think he’s looking too hard because I haven’t been able to use my window for a while now. That makes it tricky to go through drive-thu’s, ATMs and hospital parking garages. He was recently very sweet and out-of-the-blue installed new windshield wipers on my car while I was at work because he said he noticed my old ones weren’t doing a good job. Now, I just need to fix the wiper fluid injector so I can clean my windows without having to wait until it rains.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the bank and parked (I couldn’t go through the drive thru because of the window) and when I went to get out of the car, the handle literally fell off in my hand. I wish now that I had taken a picture of that. For a moment, my mind couldn’t comprehend what happened. I sat there staring at my door and then the handle in my hand, and then back at the door. Such bad words popped into my head. I tried but was unable to get out on the driver’s side. I had to climb my healthy stature over to the passenger side and stumble out of the car. Not fun…or graceful. James came to the rescue and tried to do a temporary fix until he could pick up a new handle the next day. I stood outside with him, at night, in the dark & cold as he took off the door panels of the driver door and rear door. He then unbolted the door handles thinking he could move the rear door handle to the driver’s door but they were different shapes. So, he had to reassemble everything back to the way it was…in the dark & cold. Not fun. The next day, he installed a brand new handle so I was back in business.

The other morning, I stopped at a McDonald’s on my way to work. They are doing construction on the interior so you have to use the drive-thru. I opened the door to place my order, opened it again to pay, and opened it again to get my food. I was annoyed and embarrassed by the inconvenience but put it out of my mind as I continued my drive to work. I parked and reached out to touch a button on my dash and the whole panel of buttons fell inside my dashboard.  Again, I wish I had a picture to capture the utter disgust on my face.   

So now it is 2012 and I have a dilemma.  I can fix the car I have or spend the next 5 years paying off a new car.  A new car would be nice but considering I drive 20 minutes to and from work, it seems like alot to spend for less than an hours use per day.  That new car money could go towards college educations, a car for Brandon, family vacations, lots of things.  I think I'll fix the minor problems with my car and drive "free."