My husband’s truck gives new meaning to the word “clunker”.  On more than one occasion I have suggested (begged, pleaded, demanded) he make a one way trip to the junkyard (for the truck, of course).

The body is not only rusting, it is rusting away.  I swear I have seen a bird nesting inside one of the cavernous orifices opened up by the decay.  At some point, repairs were done to hold the rim above the tires together… those plastic electrical cable ties and duct tapes really seem to be doing the trick.  The rear view mirror is, well, gone – no-one seems to know where.  The antenna, which some time back resided in its proper place outside, has now taken up residence inside the truck with its end jammed into an earthquake like crack that runs the length of the dashboard. The license plate is permanently bent into the shape of a taco, held on firmly with a wire hanger. And in order to start up the old timer, you must pump the gas not once, not twice, but three times and no more. I think the radio still works. Which is a good thing so you have something to listen to while you are freezing into an icicle or sweating into a puddle.

The other day, I walked out my door ready to drive my son and his friend to a birthday party.  It suddenly occurred to me that earlier in the day, in the wake of loaning his car to a friend, my husband had then borrowed my car leaving me with, yep you guessed it, the clunker. But, get to the party we must.  So in we three climbed.   Just a short distance, how bad could it be? Well, the answer to that quickly came when one of the doors began to randomly open of its own accord as if to be saying “get out while you still can”; which would have been a fairly safe jump considering the general 10 mile an hour maximum possible speed as we went up hills…with the pedal floored. And despite the rattling of the vehicle which threatened to bring doubt to my faith in those cable ties and giving up trying to solve the mystery of the dashboard antenna, we finally arrived at our destination.  Basically, in one piece.

Upon arriving back home in my driveway I had but one thought… I will NEVER in a million years get rid of that truck!  You see, for the entirety of our few mile trip that took, oh, 20 minutes or more, the three of us laughed until the tears were streaming down our faces.

You can’t buy joy like that, and you certainly don’t send it to the junkyard.