Honestly he felt fine. After 18 years he was still raring to go and fit for fight. He never complained or gave me any grief. On the other hand there was that strange sound on the left side. And the squeaky breaks. And the noise he made when I parallel parked. But despite all this I was convinced he still had a few good years in him. Until the EU landed him with a death sentence that was. One month left on the road. I was going to have to kill Karl. Just like that.
“You can’t accept blood money,” my sister wailed. “It’s Karl!”
“Have you any idea how expensive it is to run a car? And how much I need another one by the end of the month?”
“Yes, but still! You can’t scrap him – that’s murder!”
“Well, what do you want me to do? Send him to a nice retirement home? Bury him in the garden?”
“Hmmm...”
And before I knew it my month was up, I was the owner of a newer car and more debt and I was taking Karl to his last resting place. The scrap yard. Although risking sounding like a complete sentimental twat I have to say that it was not an easy thing to do.
While I filled out the required forms a man with a crowbar went outside to take off the registration plates. A few minutes later he came back with two plates twisted beyond recognition. Obviously Karl had fought to the bitter end. I blew him a last kiss and walked away without looking back. The tears in my eyes were not just due to the extraordinary high pollen count that was surrounding the city.
Karl was my first car. Named after a sitcom character by me and my sister in a drunken state after celebrating the purchase and my birthday all in one night, he soon became a part of the family.
We continued the naming tradition with my dad’s new car calling it Kato after a famous disabled guy when I somehow managed to get stuck leaving a parking lot with one of those spiraling exits and left it looking like it had been attacked with a tin can opener. I had to get a man to help push me off the wall. Not my proudest moment…
Bought from an old friend of the family Karl was old but still had plenty to offer with only 43.000 km on the clock. After spending his first 15 years going from town to down to Parliament and the time in between in a heated garage and being washed and hovered extensively every week, life with me was something else. I left him out in the rain, filled him up with smelly horsey coats for all possible weather scenarios and pushed him to do 120 km on the motorway. And I think he really enjoyed it. Being my horsey transport seemed to suit him just fine and he never objected to being my second wardrobe either. It was pointed out by various passengers that all I missed in there was a horse really. Or pony would probably have been more realistic with Karl being a Nissan Micra.
Soon all my friends and family knew who Karl was. When a male friend loudly announced “Oh, here comes darling in our car!” I had to object. Darling? Hmmm, don’t think so. OUR car? Most certainly not. For the first time I experienced what it was like having someone chasing you for your possessions. Now you could argue that to chase me for my 1989 Micra he would have to be pretty mad, but then this was the guy who insisted on having Tacos at the wedding reception if he ever got married. But then he was Swedish I suppose. The point is that Karl was special and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I would not go quite as far as saying that he touched the hearts of his passengers forever, but he certainly had character.
But with Karl now in Nissan Micra Heaven, the blood money spent and a Ford KA in the driveway you should think I had forgotten all about him. But I still keep his key on my key ring. That’s the least he deserves.
“You can’t accept blood money,” my sister wailed. “It’s Karl!”
“Have you any idea how expensive it is to run a car? And how much I need another one by the end of the month?”
“Yes, but still! You can’t scrap him – that’s murder!”
“Well, what do you want me to do? Send him to a nice retirement home? Bury him in the garden?”
“Hmmm...”
And before I knew it my month was up, I was the owner of a newer car and more debt and I was taking Karl to his last resting place. The scrap yard. Although risking sounding like a complete sentimental twat I have to say that it was not an easy thing to do.
While I filled out the required forms a man with a crowbar went outside to take off the registration plates. A few minutes later he came back with two plates twisted beyond recognition. Obviously Karl had fought to the bitter end. I blew him a last kiss and walked away without looking back. The tears in my eyes were not just due to the extraordinary high pollen count that was surrounding the city.
Karl was my first car. Named after a sitcom character by me and my sister in a drunken state after celebrating the purchase and my birthday all in one night, he soon became a part of the family.
We continued the naming tradition with my dad’s new car calling it Kato after a famous disabled guy when I somehow managed to get stuck leaving a parking lot with one of those spiraling exits and left it looking like it had been attacked with a tin can opener. I had to get a man to help push me off the wall. Not my proudest moment…
Bought from an old friend of the family Karl was old but still had plenty to offer with only 43.000 km on the clock. After spending his first 15 years going from town to down to Parliament and the time in between in a heated garage and being washed and hovered extensively every week, life with me was something else. I left him out in the rain, filled him up with smelly horsey coats for all possible weather scenarios and pushed him to do 120 km on the motorway. And I think he really enjoyed it. Being my horsey transport seemed to suit him just fine and he never objected to being my second wardrobe either. It was pointed out by various passengers that all I missed in there was a horse really. Or pony would probably have been more realistic with Karl being a Nissan Micra.
Soon all my friends and family knew who Karl was. When a male friend loudly announced “Oh, here comes darling in our car!” I had to object. Darling? Hmmm, don’t think so. OUR car? Most certainly not. For the first time I experienced what it was like having someone chasing you for your possessions. Now you could argue that to chase me for my 1989 Micra he would have to be pretty mad, but then this was the guy who insisted on having Tacos at the wedding reception if he ever got married. But then he was Swedish I suppose. The point is that Karl was special and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I would not go quite as far as saying that he touched the hearts of his passengers forever, but he certainly had character.
But with Karl now in Nissan Micra Heaven, the blood money spent and a Ford KA in the driveway you should think I had forgotten all about him. But I still keep his key on my key ring. That’s the least he deserves.
Karl roughing it February 2006…
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