Traded Up

The other day I took my 1-year-old PT Cruiser for an oil change. It had not quite 8800 miles on it so I was a little early, but I had the time, and it was Ladies' Day and all, so why not? My previous car was an Ford Escort station wagon that I raised from a pup. It had just seven miles on it when I bought it, and it served me well -- most of the time -- for almost 10 years. In spite of the repair costs it incurred in its later years, I never fell out of love with it. I just knew, though, that it was about time for something really bad to go wrong with it, and I was finally in a financial position that I could buy a "big girl" car. So I sold it, and bought my PT. My PT is a beautiful pale gold, with a sunroof, satellite radio, CD and tape players, power seats, windows, and locks (none of which I had in the Escort), and lots of nice little features, like the overhead compass/outside temp thermometer. It still makes me smile every time I drive it. Oddly, I don't miss my Escort. :) I keep the PT clean with trips to the fancy car wash, where you walk along a hallway and watch the car going through the wash, then a half dozen cute young guys hop in and clean the windows and vacuum it and put in a "new car" air freshener. I am also being careful to get oil changes right on schedule. I pulled into the oil change place, and they ran my license plate on their computer, and greeted me by name when I got out of the car. He asked if I was still at the same address (yes), and then asked if that was still a 2005 PT Cruiser (um, yes, last time I looked it was). These places are always out to sell you some filter or service that you suspect you don't really need, and today was no exception. I sat in the waiting room listening to them. One guy called out the mileage, which was 8797. After a pause, the other guy said, "That's all?" Still, he pulled the air filter, searched his stock for a replacement, then called me out to look at the "dirty" one. It's a rectangular type, and it looked almost as clean as if it had just come out of the box. There was a small dirty area on it about the size of a ping-pong ball. I've seen dirty air filters before (remember, I had my Little Red Momcar for 10 years) and I know what a dirty one looks like. The guy looked at me like he was sorry to have to give this little speech, but he launched into how I could see that my air filter was getting dirty, and that they recommend you replace it every 10,000 miles, and did I want a new one? I looked at him and said, "I haven't even driven it 10,000 miles yet." With this look that said "sorry, but I have to ask, even though I know it's a stupid question", he asked, "Well... do you want me to replace it... or just put it back?" I suggested he put it back. After the oil change, I took the car for a wash, and feeling like a responsible owner of a well-maintained car, I put it carefully into the garage. The next day at work a bird with digestive problems apparently hovered over it for some minutes (there's nothing like looking at bird poop through the sunroof), and then the next day it poured rain. Hey, I tried!