So today I donated our old white car (which we named Beau) to charity. We bought the car when I was pregnant with Butterfly. We bought the cheapest thing we could get, because we bought it for one reason.
When I was pregnant with Butterfly, I was so sick. SO sick. At the time, I was working and commuting. I was riding the train and then the bus to my office. Well, I got sick of waiting for the bus. It added a good half hour to my commute to ride the bus. Plus, there were people on there that just irritated my delicate pregnant nose and overly delicate stomach.
So we bought the car to leave overnight at the Metro station so I wouldn’t have to ride the bus. It worked. For awhile. Until the train started making me ill too and then I started driving all the time.
Then I wrecked our main car, and Beau became our only car. For 5 years. Then the boys were born and we needed a car to actually fit everyone. We bought our van and became a 2 car family. First time in 5 years.
So Juice drove Beau for a long time. Until about 8 months ago when it smoked and clanked and stopped working. Then Juice had a buddy from work come over and take belts off the engine to see what was wrong. It was then we decided to NOT fix it, and buy Juice a new car.
So Beau sat in the same parking spot for 8 months. Weeds grew under it. We wondered what to do with it. Sell it to the junk place? Sell it to a friend who wanted to fix it up? Donate it? (Yes, it took us 8 months to make this decision.)
We kept coming back to donating it. So that’s what we did!
Wondering how to donate your own car? Here’s the steps I took.
Use the search engine of choice for “donate car.” I used Swagbucks and got a few extra bucks.
Decide where you want to donate to. We picked Make a Wish Foundation. Why? They were the first ones on the list. But there was a lot of other places I glanced through. Pick something that you are passionate about and want to help out.
Enter your information on the website. Hit submit.
Answer the phone when they call you and set up an appointment.
Find the title, clean the car out, and gather up all the keys. Take the tags off the car.
Be there for the appointment.
Sign over the title. Wave goodbye.
Be a little sad.
I will kind of miss that car. It’s how we drove the kids home from the hospital. It was the very first car that Juice actually went through the process of purchasing. There were a lot of memories in that car.
Hopefully it will help the Make A Wish Foundation as much as it helped us.
This week Juice has a class in Baltimore for some kind of training. He leaves early, gets home after the kids are in bed, and it’s tiring. He also took my car because his car is, well, old. Decrepit. A joy to drive, let me tell you.
Lucky for us (or unlucky…you decide) all 3 car seats fit in the back seat. So Juice had my van, and I had his car.
And his car is…quirky.
The back door on the passenger side doesn’t open from the outside. Ever. I’m sure it could if I wanted it too, but it doesn’t.
There is no radio due to the fact that there is no antenna. Stupid kids in our neighborhood broke it off several years ago. We’ve never replaced it.
The windshield wipers work, as long as there is no need to turn on the blinker. If it’s raining (like it did today) and you need to turn (like I did today) the windshield wipers do not work. They will quit mid-wipe. They won’t turn back on after the blinker is off either…you have to coax them into working again.
For a car that is 25 years old, I think this is a relatively short list!
Lately Juice’s car has been making an alarming knocking noise when we go over any kind of tiny bump. Like, seriously alarming. Something hits right below your feet. It’s not supposed to do that. So. We’re off to take it to the shop to (hopefully) get it fixed for (hopefully!) a decent price. My thought is that a bolt came loose and something important is just hanging free.
This morning we packed everyone into the car with the intention of having lunch at Ikea. Yum! It’s something we try to do every time Flower is in town. We love Ikea.
So we’re all set to go and I turn on the car. Well, I try to anyway. Nothing was happening. Just a clicking noise. So I hopped out and asked Juice to come on out and jump the car. He hooks up the cables and suddenly, they begin to smoke. And then the plastic begins to melt. We were jumping around trying to figure out how to get them off the car since they were much to hot to touch. We ended up using Pirate’s hat as a hot pad. It was the first thing I could find. And it now has red plastic melted to it. Oh well.
After much Internet searching and a question posed to a friend, we decided the battery WAS the culprit. Juice tried to put the battery from his car into mine but it didn’t fit. In taking out the battery, he realized that he probably put the jumper cables on the wrong terminals and that’s what caused them to smoke.
Once he put them on the right terminals the car started right up. Well, we decided that we really can’t be driving around with a super bad battery so we went off to the store to get one.
I know! Let’s go on an impromptu date to the auto shop! We went to Sears because they were close and put a battery in Juice’s car when the boys were small. We drove up and no one came to see what we needed. I didn’t want to turn the car off for fear the battery would die and we would be stuck in their bay. Well we waited, and waited. And waited. Almost half an hour later we had someone come to us and ask if we needed to be rung up. Uh, excuse me? Juice told him we wanted to be helped, not checked out. He waved it aside and said, “Well then do you want to be signed in then?” He was NOT nice with it either.
Once we told him we needed a battery, he said, “Oh, that will be at least 2 hours.” For a battery! We said no thank you and tried to back up. He stopped us and told us he needed to put us into the system. I very firmly told him no and we drove away.
And right to Jiffy Lube. Where we were greeted upon driving up. And 35 minutes later, we had a new battery and an oil change. Awesome! I love Jiffy Lube.
This afternoon I went and got my hair cut. I gave up a nice nap because when I left, all the kids were sleeping. But my hair had to go. It was so long. It was long enough that as I was brushing it, I couldn’t brush the ends because my arm did not go that far back. It was brushing my forearms when I was standing up and my arms were straight down. It was attacking Juice at night. He was begging me to cut it. I was begging myself to cut it. So I broke down, skipped my nap, and went.
I went to the local kid’s place because if I donated it to Locks of Love, they would cut my hair for free. Okay then. Free hair cut, check! They were fast. The lady put my hair in a pony tail, snipped and then braided it to send away. Once she got my hair off, I thought, “My hair!” Although I was not sad to see it go. She evened everything out and told me horror stories about working there. Like people being bit so hard by kids they had to have stitches! Does not pay to work in a kiddie salon!
I was there 10 minutes and then went back out to my car (by way of the free samples at the cinnamon roll place…was all about free stuff today).
I was all excited to be able to get back to my house in record time and I was sure that the boys needed me or something. I hopped into my car, put the key in, got a tiny “rrrr…rrrr” and then nothing. Ohhhh…I tried again. I waited a few minutes and tried again. Nothing. Sigh. I called Juice. And then I called my in laws to come and get me.
Luckily, the hair cutting place was in the mall and I parked right in front of S*ears. So they brought out their little battery check machine to my car, got it at least started and got it into the work bay area. They checked the battery: dead. New battery installed in about 30 minutes (it pays to tell the worker who is checking you in that you have 3 week old twins at home and they are pretty fast).
It was nice to have my father in law there to come and get me and to help me through the whole battery process thing. Because frankly, I hate the car stuff. If Juice could do it all the time, he would. I even hate going to get the oil changed. I will do it because it makes sense for me to do it but I still don’t like it at all. So thanks New Grandpa! (This is what Butterfly calls him…my dad is Old Grandpa because they were here first visiting.)
So I did get home. Before the boys needed to eat even (although Grandma had to convince Professor to hold out with a pacifier until I got there). I’m just happy that the hair is gone. It will be much cooler in the summer!
Juice and I love to watch Mythbusters (on the Discovery Channel…no idea what time because I use the DVR with reckless abandonment). If you are familiar with Adam and Jamie, you will know that they take myths and try to prove or disprove them. This past week’s myth was a sinking car. Well, I can explain it or you can just watch it for yourself. It horrified me. Just see:
Okay, so what’s the problem you ask? Well, these guys are notorious for taking things, say a car, and destroying it. So they tend to get things that people don’t want anymore. Or they are old. Take that car in the video for example, a 1991 Ford Taurus.
Yes, I know the year and the make and model of this car. Why? Because that’s MY car. The Mythbusters sank MY car. Juice says they probably got it at a good deal and that’s why they decided to destroy it. Yeah…what does that say about our car, hmmm?
