Bye Bye Rusty Beast, Goodbye

As of 4:45 this afternoon, we are no longer owners of a maroon 95 Rusty Beast. Of course, we considered the ownership of one Rusty Beast null and void once it died at the intersection on our way to preschool and has since inspired us to purchase another Honda. I'm not sure we'll ever part from the Honda empire after our issues with the Rusty Beast and his cousin, a much younger family member that departed us in 2006 after an incredibly short life. Of course, Rusty Beast was bought new in 95 by my partner in crime, while he was out engineering in the Northland and I was a sophomore in high school. No, we did not know each other way back then or know that three engines later, the Rusty Beast would be gone in 2009. We had no idea.


It's been a long ride full of bumps and snags. But we can't complain too much. That car withstood a lot. It was made faulty, yet it still stuck it out with us as we ran it to the ground, just as planned. You see, in June 2003, we had this massive hailstorm in our town. And when I type "massive," I meant the hail. Reported baseball sized and golf ball sized hail came down rattling our small town and giving us a new roof in the process. It also damaged both of our cars. The insurance company decided to total out the Rusty Beast and we decided that we weren't really interested in buying another car at that moment since we'd just purchased Rusty Beast's relative the month prior. Little did we know that Rusty Beast's cousin would be dead and gone within a couple years. All we did know was that Rusty Beast ran about as good as a Saturn could run, so we kept it, dents and all, with the intention of driving it until it passed. It was going to end up in a landfill anyway, it might as well end up there dead and not just physically marred.


And even though it wasn't the prettiest car, all shiny and fancy looking with ridiculous payments like just another car on the road, we drove it as proudly as one could drive a Saturn. And then when the cousin died in the spring of 2006 after less than three years of ownership, stranding Daddy and his redhead on the side of I-35, we went and moved on to a little red Honda, not willing to take anymore chances. And from there, I took over driving the Rusty Beast since Bailey and I drive very little in comparison to Daddy, since he was driving fifty miles a day just to work, not counting the additional fifty miles back. It made the most sense even if Daddy protested a bit.


Now flash forward to the present. Rusty Beast has been hanging out in the same parking lot he chose to die in, rather the parking lot he crawled to his death to. He's been there for a wee bit, and luckily no one has complained. Rusty Beast certainly hasn't. After some brainstorming and researching, we found the easiest way to part with our old friend. We had a few options, and originally we figured we would have to pay to have it towed then pay for a dumping fee for it. We knew it wouldn't be cheap.


Then I learned of salvage yards and the one I was referred to would pay us for it (approximately $50) but we'd have to pay them for the towing. It wasn't going to even out, but we were desperate to rid ourselves of it. (Well, one of us was, the other was kind of in "out of sight, out of mind" mode since the Rusty Beast was not in our driveway.) Some stranger on a local message board mentioned an ad in the local version of a Penny Saver, which forced me to dig around in the front yard and find an old buried copy of it that was seriously in some bad shape, but not such poor shape that I couldn't flip through its mildewed and crumbling pages to find such an ad for the phone number.


Fortunately, my other half reached the guy and met up with him and it was almost effortless. we were free and clear from the Rusty Beast AND the guy paid us $75! Don't tell him, but we would've given it to him for free if it meant he was hauling it away and we would've told him such if he'd decided he wasn't sure he wanted it. We didn't know the going rate for a piece of junk. We just needed it gone. And now it's gone and we can forget we ever owned a Saturn. Just for the record though, it wasn't all bad. It just wasn't all good.


Goodbye Rusty Beast. Enjoy your future as a crushed steel box.