Good Bye Midnight Cowboy

While the world is reeling on it’s axis over the untimely death of the uniquely talented Mr. Jackson we here at Sasstown are mourning the loss of our 2000 Audi 2.7T. Seriously. We drove the hair off of that car in the 9 years we owned it. There are 190,000 miles worth of intriguing stories we can recollect. It’s probably worthy of a book all on it’s own. For a more thorough recollection of the beginning of my love affair with this car see Dirty Little Secret.

Comparing the loss of a beloved car to the death of a rock star may seem audacious and irreverent. And it is. But I will spend far more measured amount of time missing that car than the unfortunate pop star, even though I was a fan of his back in the day. That midnight blue high performance vehicle brought me, a run of the mill soccer mom out of obscurity and into a fantasy life that didn’t include always trying to haul 6 kids around. That sucker was worth every penny for the sake of my mental health.

Like the feeling of despair experienced by most pet owners when informed that their beloved animal needs to be put out of it’s suffering, I reluctantly traded in my trophy car recently. I tried to justify the costs of repairing the vehicle but the mechanic sadly convinced me the repairs of the turbo engine would outweigh the value of the thing. When my son moved to Chicago, possession of the prized auto reverted back to me. In a rite of passage he became the primary driver when the car was around 5 years old and took it with him to live at Michigan State University where he was a student.

The Prince had been the chooser, buyer and caretaker of our family vehicles since he first took possession of his drivers permit. He strived to keep them in mint condition regularly washing, waxing and vacuuming out the remnants of happy meals enjoyed by his sisters. He became buddies with the local Audi mechanic. The Prince handled it all and kept the Audi we each considered our own shining and humming for 190,000 fun driving miles. Once he had it at school he had a fancy alarm and remote car starter installed.

Late one morning I got a frantic phone call from my son. When he woke up late that morning he was dismayed to find out his car was not in the apartment parking lot as expected. He had a garden level apartment and someone had come through the window, took his keys and wallet and helped themselves to the Midnight Cowboy. I was thankful he didn’t wake up and get in a tangle with the criminal. Later that day I was feeling very forlorn about the loss of that car.

That same day a student from upstairs called to say he thought his room mate may have nabbed the car. During the night he had thrown all his stuff in garbage bags and left. Turns out he had been in the Prince’s apartment for a party the week before, explaining how he knew what he needed to know to get the keys and the car. They thought he may have headed to Detroit to his girlfriends house. They thought wrong. The following day he got the call from the East Lansing police.

Turns out they found the car on the other side of town parked in a handicap parking spot, identified it as stolen and towed it to the police impound. When our criminal friend woke up he called the police to report his car had been stolen. The police went back to his location and asked him for ID. Since he had my son’s wallet he proceeded to whip out the stolen ID and tried to pass it off as his own. To make it even more interesting this guy looked nothing like my son, was not even the same race. You know what they say about dumb criminals, he was actually surprised when he was arrested on the spot. Order was restored to our little corner of the universe.

The last year was very hard on Midnight Cowboy. We added another driver to our family, and she’s not a shining star in the driving department. We fear she may be the kiss of death to many cars to come. Then the winter was pretty extreme this year and Midnight didn’t like that at all, billowing smoke when driven. It wasn’t pretty.

I broke the news to my boy in Chicago and he decided to take the train home to help me get the matter settled once and for all. We drove it to the dealer and they took a look at it, gave us the trade in price. We were to come back in morning to pick up my new car. We debated whether we should drive the Audi home or leave it on the dealer lot for the night. My son got in, gave me a pleading look and started it up, it sounded fantastic but it belched smoke so we left it to get accustomed to the new way of life.

It was a gloomy morning and we were Chicago bound after taking delivery of the new car. I wouldn’t call us happy campers.Sadly we emptied Midnight of all our personal belongings and spent some private time saying good-bye. Hopefully they will fix the problems and sell it to some other lucky soul and Midnight will live on to provide good memories. The Prince said good by and gave that old car a big goodbye kiss. R.I.P. to our turbo charged fun.

Comments

[Princess # 1]

Ahhh the saga of that sweet ass car has ended. Good times...flying down 696 in the back seat with the music blaring on our way to Royal Oak. Or driving up north for summertime fun. What a soldier to put up with years of our shenanigans.

But was it really necessary to compare a car to MJ? God you are a button pusher.

[The Mother]

I bet your lovely car never molested a child and didn't kill itself with pain killers, either.

Just sayin'.

[The Lawyer Mom]

Any respite from the MJ media marathon is welcome! I had a car like Midnight Cowboy. I called her Morning Miata . . . still miss her, too.

[Mercedes]

Haha, I love this picture of the Prince kissing Midnight after he refused to lick the other car like Princess #1. He's so loyal.