R.I.P. Dominick

I'm sorry I've been so quiet this week.  It was going to be a crazy week anyway, what with final exams, but then... well.  Life happened.  With a vengeance.

Tuesday morning I parked by the bus stop at Wal-Mart as usual and rode the bus in to town to take a final.  When I came back, my poor car had been the victim of a hit-and-run.  Or rather, the culprit had "left a note" with a name (probably fake) and a phone number which proved to be false.  My front bumper was hanging to the ground, the turn signal light was in fragments, and the headlight was three spaces over in the parking lot.

So I spent Tuesday and Wednesday dealing with the police and the insurance company (and writing my final paper for music analysis -- it was due by 10 on Wednesday morning.)  By Thursday afternoon I finally had a rental car.  It's a brand-new Grand Caravan and it's massive -- I'm calling it the Behemoth.  It also eats gas like it's going out of style.

Yesterday the insurance called and said that due to "the prior condition of the car" and its mileage and its age, they were counting it as a total loss.  I wasn't expecting that, but it *is* old and has over 163,000 miles on it, so I guess they just decided it wasn't worth it to them to fix him up.  So this morning I went over and got all my last things out of Dominick and said good-bye.  He wasn't fancy and he wasn't beautiful and he certainly wasn't new and shiny, but he was my first car and I liked him.

Last summer, right after I drove him down to Tennessee.  Apparently I only ever took three pictures of Dominick.

Oh, and now I need a new car.