sludgo’s Mile Markers: Mile 221 You Should Know

This is Part Three of a three-part series. Click the links to read Part One, and Part Two.

It was a warm and sunny June morning and I’d been home about a week and a half. I was out in the garage thinking I should take advantage of the weather and give Mom’s RAV4 a good wash because it needed it. Had gotten dusty sitting in front of the McBungalow since I got back and was still grimy and buggy from the trip, but just as I was getting motivated my phone rang. Saw it was the eldest so I picked up. Knew immediately by his voice that something was brewing. He pretended-normal for a minute, asking me all the usuals. How I was. What I’d been up to. If the dogs were okay. And I answered him with all the usuals. Fine. Not much. Yup. Then he paused and cleared his throat. Said he’d just gotten off a phone call from Grandma—the Beehive—and needed to talk to me about a couple things. So I walked over to my workbench and sat down on my shop stool. “Okeydoke, kiddo. Shoot.”

This past April when Big Sis and I decided—based on ample medical advice—to take the keys away from the Beehive we were presented with the question of what to do with her two Toyotas—the 2024 Cross she had in North Dakota and the 2022 RAV4 she kept in Arizona. Neither of us wanted or needed them, but Big Sis’s middle son and wife had been shopping for a replacement for their beaten-to-the-pulp Chevy Cruze and thought the Cross might suit their needs. In the meantime, I tossed the idea out to my eldest that he and his missus should pick up the RAV. Said that he’d talked to me before about concerns regarding his aging fleet and this might be a good opportunity. Told him I’d had good experiences with the RAV and that it had super low miles and fresh rubber and except for one or two grandma-induced mystery scuffs here and there was cherry. Said she’d likely sell it to him for low-book and I could run it across state and drop it off with a full-tank of gas and a smile. Even buy him dinner for the privilege.

He’d told me he was interested but that right now cash was tight. Reminded me he’d just sunk a fistful of Benjamins into a new HVAC system for his house after having already blown a few more fistfuls fixing his garage roof. Added that he didn’t especially want to take out a loan either so it looked like the RAV would be a no-go. But then he got that phone call from Grandma.

“She said if I wanted the RAV she’d just give it to me, Dad! Give it to me! Like as a gift! Isn’t that crazy? So the first thing I wanted to ask is if that’s cool with you. I mean, it’s a really big gift and I don’t want there to be any weirdness around anything with the family and….?”

I laughed from deep down, so hard I started to wheeze and cough.

“Of course it’s cool with me,” I sputtered. “Of course it is.”

“Awesome, Dad, awesome, but that presents another issue. See, we’d have four cars then and don’t have room for that many so I wanted to give you the heads-up that we’d probably end up selling the Subaru.”

I winced hard at the thought. Selling the Subaru. Selling the Subie. My Subie-doobie-doo, an ’04 Impreza RS 2.5 sedan—black with alloy rims and an autobox. I bought it new back in the day along with two of its siblings—a blue Sportback and a red sedan. Needed them as company cars, and from the moment they hit my office parking lot, my in-home care staff got busy racking up zillions of bulletproof miles on them until we shuttered the program in ’09. We liquidated the blue and red one immediately, selling them the first day they were listed, but the Redhead and I decided to keep the black one as a family car. It made sense. She was tired of commuting in our Titan, a giant-sized vehicle for her four-foot-ten-inch self to wrangle around town, and wanted something smaller and more manageable. Additionally, the boys were nearing driving age and we knew we’d soon need a car for them to use, something safe and reliable and gutless and harmless and the Subie fit that bill perfectly. So we welcomed it into our family and for years afterward it proved itself faithful and true, never giving us a tick of trouble as it gradually transitioned from the Redhead’s ride to the boys’ car before the eldest bought it from me for five bucks in ’18 when he headed to Montana for college. And now he was considering getting rid of it.

I squeezed out a bittersweet smile. Told him the car had been his to do whatever with from the day I sold it to him. That I’d always thought it had been a good car but I also knew it had been suffering from some chronic issues as of late that weren’t going to be easy nor cheap to resolve and that with his old Nissan pickup and his wife’s almost-as-old Corolla and Grandma’s RAV now on the way I completely understood why he’d want to sell it.

He sounded relieved and I started to get used to the idea as we chatted a bit more about the best way to sell it. How and where to list it. I told him to make sure to give it a good washing and vacuuming including inside the trunk and to have the oil changed and the battery charged and the tires filled before someone came to look at it. He asked what he should price it at and I told him to ask what he wanted for it and not to be shy about holding that price against any offers but also to be honest with himself when he set the price in the first place. After all, the Subie wasn’t exactly a Prom Queen anymore.

He laughed at that. Thanked me for the advice, then paused before asking me once more if I was cool with everything. I took a big sigh and told him I was but at the same time I wasn’t. Said that I’d miss the car even though I hadn’t been around it for years. Noted that every car I’ve owned in my life had always marked many unforgettable miles with me and the Subie was no different. Told him it had always reminded me of the glory years of the practice when we were really baking biscuits and cooking with gas, the years when we lived hillside in stately sludgo manor and I used the Subie to teach him and his brother to drive back and forth on our long, tree-lined driveway. Said that I still remembered how handsome they looked in their tuxes when they drove away in it to pick up their dates that one year they doubled for the Homecoming dance. How cute I always thought his mom looked zipping around in it and how thankful I was that it had kept her safe and sound that dark and snowy and slippery Christmas Eve when she slid into that irrigation canal just a mile from the house. And that all that stuff was just the beginning. That I had many more memories of course, because I always have more memories.

Then I stopped myself. Gave a dry cough and blinked my eyes clear then told him to sell it. Said that everything was cool on my end. That he should let me know how I could help. That I’d check my schedule and see when I could bring Grandma’s RAV over and that he needed to make sure and thank her for it. Over and over and over again and then once more after that. Maybe drop her a Hallmark telling her how blessed he was to have such a generous grandmother. Even send her some flowers. That tulips were her favorite. Then we said our see-ya-laters and hung up and that was that. Goodbye to you, Subie-doobie-doo.

I got to Mom’s apartment later that evening after dinner and found her sitting at the kitchen table working on a jigsaw puzzle. A five-hundred-piecer. The setting sun was bathing the whole place in a warm pumpkin-orange glow as I pulled a chair alongside her then leaned in and gave her a hug. Told her I’d gotten a call from the eldest that morning and I saw her face brighten. I began thanking her for her generosity, telling her that giving him the RAV was so kind but she interrupted me with a wave of her hand and a curious smile.

“Well, honestly, sludge, I’ve reconsidered things and I’m not going to just give it away for nothing. I’ve decided I want something for it after all.”

I raised a puzzled eyebrow.

“Oh, uh, sure,” I stammered. “What were you thinking?”

She reached out. Took my hand and gave it a ninety-one year-old squeeze.

“I want one last ride in it,” she said softly. “Out to the Dairy Queen for a small hot-fudge sundae with crushed nuts.”

I grinned.

“Sold, Mom. Sold.”

Peaceful travels…

sludgo