I just posted my old ‘88 Nissan for sale on Craigslist (Craigslist is the last refuge for those of us too cheap to pay for online classifieds). It needs a new muffler to pass inspection, and I hardly drive it anymore, so I’ve decided it’s time to say goodbye. I bought it in 2000 for $800 and it has served me well (I drove it cross-country with my brother John when we moved here 3 years ago).

Every car has at least one good anecdote to go with it, so here’s mine: not long after we bought our Toyota Echo, I was weeding in my front yard when a 8 or 9 year old skinny black boy with close-cropped hair was walking by. He was curious about the unusual looking new car in our driveway, so he stopped to ask me a bunch of questions about it. His last question was, “do you like driving it?,” and I responded, “yeah, but my wife drives it most of the time.” “Oh, what do you drive?,” he asked, and I responded simply by pointing to the beat-up looking Nissan parked in the street. “Oh,” he said, with a knowing look on his face, “I see how it is.” And with that, he continued on his way.