Sad Day...

I didn't think it would be that difficult.  I always knew I would be returning her once the 3-year lease period expired.  I never bothered with getting a parking spot.  Both her front and rear bumpers were covered with battle scars from LA/SF street parking, and the paint on the hood and the trunk were worn out by inclement SF weather.  I washed her only on 3 occasions - when I went on dates (which there weren't many), when I had to take work clients out for lunch/dinner, and when I took her in for service (okay, the service center washed her).  Whenever a service person would try to upsell me on the parts or services that she needed (say, synthetic engine oil), I would fight the sales pitch off by saying "I'm cool, man.  It's a lease."  I always thought of her as more of a nuisance -- I spent more on parking tickets than gas every month, and she was a magnet for scratches inflicted by punkass vandals.  I used her so sparingly that casual acquaintances probably wouldn't have known that I had a car.

Turning her in today was super sad.

She was the ultimate utility infielder.  She didn't excel at anything in particular, but she could do everything I wanted her to do.  She helped me move 3 times -- I moved my TV with her.  She was able to fit 4 sets of golf clubs in her trunk.  She never broke down, and all her electronic gadgets always worked.  Once she built up some speed, her VTEC kicked in to push her just fast enough to be able to pass pretty much any car.  Her spark plugs fired just fine even after I'd just abandoned her on the streets of SF for a couple weeks.  Even her navi voice wasn't (all that) female-warden-like.  She was never flashy, but she was always reliable.

What I will always remember is my drive up and down between SF and LA with her.  I'm not sure exactly how many times I've done that drive, but I know it was enough to elicit "you're doing that drive again?!?!" from the people around me.  Just me, driving her, soaking in the vastness of I5, zoning out, thinking, working things out in my head.  I've gone through the most honest, the most agonizing, the most cathartic self-reflections during these drives, and she was always there for me then.  The eureka moments through those self-reflections will always stay just between me and her.