Farewell my friend...

Last week we said goodbye to my Jeep. It was affectionately dubbed "The fickle pickle," which was later shortened to "The Fickle." Although we gave the fickle a hard time and talked bad about it, it was a faithful (sorta) car. I hoped it would get me thought grad school; it did. Then I hoped it would get me though miles and miles for CPS; it did. Then I hoped it would last until I won a new car on The Price is Right; apparently that was too much to ask.
I wanted to share my two favorite fickle stories in an effort to bid him farewell. The first was when his name was actually derived. The day was in this high 90's and I was out running errands. The air conditioner was not working. I got back into the car after one stop and started him up. I pulled out and then tried to put the windows down, but they wouldn't work. Talk about suffocation. When I stopped at a light I opened the door for some air. When I closed the door, I tried the windows again and they worked! What a relief. Of course, when I got home, I couldn't get them up again so I had to go straight to the mechanic.
The second story, paints me as a bit of an airhead. However, I am willing to incriminate myself for the laughter of others. It was a Friday night in my first year of grad school and I was studying at home. For my big Friday night excitement, I decided to drive to 7-11 for a Dr. Pepper. I came back home and parked the fickle in the normal spot, which was on a hill. I headed into my apartment. The next morning, I decided to go for a run down on town lake. I walked out to the parking lot to find the fickle was gone. The motions of the previous night went through my head to reassure myself that I had indeed parked it in the normal spot. After scanning the parking lot, I found the fickle down the hill, smashed into a Hyundai. And when I say smashed, I mean that car was smashed. What do you do in a situation like that? I knocked on the door of my pal Kelly. They recommended I leave a note on the car. This didn't really seem appropriate, you leave a note when you scratch someone's car. This car was smashed. After some debate, I call the cops. The officer that responded must have really felt bad for me. He came up with a great story for how the event occurred. See, I had a recall notice from Jeep that they had some cases where jeeps were popping out of reverse gear when left running. There were some skid marks up the hill from where I parked. There was no indication that someone had broken into the car or any other monkey business. This cop came up with a scenario where the fickle popped out of park, rolled up hill (?), leaving skid marks (?), then popped into drive and rolled down hill, smacking into the car. What was the point in arguing when his scenario made me out to be an innocent victim rather than a ditz who didn't put her car into park? Dispatch called the owner of the other car who came out frantic in her pjs. She was a graduate student in government. The officer had to explain to her 3 times the difference between civil and criminal court and that we wouldn't be going to court unless someone brings it to civil court. Fortunately for me, that was the end of it. I guess good ole USAA took care of her. The fickle didn't even have a scratch on it.
Despite no A/C and a transmission fuel leak, we posted the fickle on Craigslist and had it sold within 24 hours. Can you believe we got over 10 calls of people interested in buying it? We are loving Craigslist.