“She’ll be right, mate.”

I don’t think she will, actually. I want to say the old bomb will keep going, and I shouldn’t have any worries, but that doesn’t look like it’s happening. Too many years, too much stuff carried. It’s time the old Corolla was laid to rest.

We had a good run, though. I remember the day I bought her from some guy in Lillydale with a really long beard. I drove straight to Ringwood…sort of illegally, since the car hadn’t had a roadworthy in years, and it wasn’t feeling great. Good thing there are car places in Ringwood, roadworthy certificate will be taken care of in no time. I realised halfway through driving home that I needed a roadworthy so I just sort of veered into the nearest place I could find. And coincidentally, that’s where I kept going back to for brake and log book servicing.

Yeah, those were the early days. Already 200,000 kilometers on the clock, and counting. I thought she’d fall apart any day, but she kept going for nine awesome years. Even after we went on that road trip to Darwin with six of us in the car, plus Calum’s bass guitar. Even after I took her to Baw Baw without any snow chains and we skidded off the road into a four-foot ditch. And then there was the time when I was teaching the little sister how to drive and she rammed right through a fence and into a cow. The cow was fine, but the dent stayed in the bumper for years afterwards.

Now, she’s finally failed her roadworthy, which I already knew. Sometimes you just have to look at a car and say…it’s time. You’re scrap metal now, but I thank you for your service.

And if every car servicing mechanic in Ringwood doesn’t have a mini funeral for Jessie, then I’m gonna have a serious problem. We’ve been their most steady customers for nine years.

-Daryl