The Beast Is Dead.

After the AAA guy gave me the rotten egg smell warning this morning I had a feeling that this would be the day of the beast's death.

When I got to work I parked in one of my usual spaces in the lot and turned off the beast. For kicks I tried to start it up again, having a feeling that it would not. Bingo. I was right. Dead again the beast's battery was. So I made sure that I informed several people that I would need one, final jump start in order to drive home this afternoon, which I was able to get, with no problem.

I decided that, as long as the beast was running, I'd drive to north Nashua to check my mailbox. Let the beast cruise down these familiar roads one last time. Mission accomplished. Several times as I was driving (stopped in traffic or at a light), the transmission would quit and I'd uselessly rev the engine to try and get the transmission to slip back into gear.

I did in fact get home safely. I always back my car into the parking space, so that it's easy to get out. After waiting a long minute for some parking lot traffic to clear out, I backed the beast into not one of my regular spaces in the lot right in front of my living room window but a few down the row, slightly beyond my bedroom window, knowing that this was it. Fitting though that I was less than three feet from being where I wanted to be in the chosen parking spot, when the battery died for the last time.

I forced the steering wheel straight, threw it in neutral, and gently pushed it back into the parking space. Then I managed to hold on to the beast and reach inside and jam the gear lever into Park.

There the beast will stay until called upon, by whatever charity will take the foolish thing off of my hands.

For the record, the beast (1995 Dodge Caravan) died with 142,684.7 total miles using two transmissions. Ex and I bought the beast in July 2000. Nearly six years and 80,000+ miles we/I drove the beast, with just a few minor problems and plenty of routine maintenance and oil changes.