So there we were....

The last few weeks Barbie has been complaining about her car. A lot. She was supposed to go car shopping before the holidays and didn't. Did I mention Barbie comes with all the procrastination accessories that you would want with a Barbie doll?

And then it happened. She killed her car. We have told her to take care of it - to baby it. But alas no. The first year she owned it she never even took it's 200k mile self in for an oil change. Baby it? Not so much. In a last ditch effort she took it in last week for an oil and transmission oil change. The service station wouldn't do the transmission oil as they said it would kill her car. It kinda reminds me of that song "Too much, too little, too late to ever drive again..."

As it would go: the transmission was gone. Or at least until tonight it was going and going fast. Earlier in the day Tobey took her car shopping and she found a nice little used car that is going to get her in tons of trouble. A little red Saturn coupe. They come home and we discuss her options which were slim to none on getting the car because of one little problem: the down payment.

Luckily for Barbie we loaned her the down payment despite her procrastination of the savings nature. Because Barbie's Maxima was not driveable by her standards and she wanted to get in her new-used car tonight - we drove back up to the car lot to seal the deal. Say what you will about our parenting but I missed Idol for this - my love knows no end!

We decided to have Tobey drive the Maxima because Barbie was too scared to drive it with the transmission slipping and I drove the Shrekmobile behind them. To say her transmission was slipping would have been an understatement. But then her car wouldn't start. I think it was a last ditch effort on the Maxima's part to keep from going to the scrap heap. But after jumping the car off I followed behind them and we were on our way. I could hear that first gear didn't exist and the car simply took forever to accelerate.

We were doing fine going 20-25 mph and wouldn't you know we hit every. single. light. And then when we were one block from the dealer the Maxima gave up the ghost at a stop light. Tobey turned off the main six-lane road just enough to leave the tail end of the van hanging out in traffic. Horns were honking and I knew I was going to die. This is supposed to be the worse year of my life remember?

I pulled the van in front of them and another car stopped and we pushed the Maxima off the road. After Tobey put the car in neutral that is. Yes, we were trying to push it while he had it in drive and it was uphill. Anywho - Tobey decides to baby the car the last, very long block, to the dealer. Except that there were now two police cars blocking our exit on the down-side of the little hill. I figured the hill would give us the momentum we needed for the last block. But that was never to be as the car wouldn't go into gear.

We decided to leave the car and get to the dealer in hopes that they could tow her on in. After arriving they dispatched one of their guys to get the Maxima and a few minutes later it came rolling into their parking lot. We were so impressed it made it. And it did. The guy drove it in reverse! Reverse!! As if that couldn't be topped: the stereo system for the dealership was under my chair and every time I moved the radio station would wax and wane. I ended up being a human antenna tuning in Air Supply and John Denver much to Tobey's chagrin.

So now Barbie has a new-used car and is tickled pink and we are happy we don't have to worry about her car dying on her every time she goes over a puddle like the Maxima did.

Reverse!