Adios Flying Potato

I've had my car for 8 years, and it has served me well.

It came into my life as I was headed to St Louis for medical school; my dad and I did a lot of used car driving to find an appropriate car to drive half-way across the country. We ended up finding a 4 year old Ford Taurus. The trunk space is amazing and I have toted around an astounding amount of stuff in a relatively small car.

Probably listening to NPR at some point I heard a story about the development of aerodynamic cars, the Taurus was one of the first. However the shape is more bulbous than necessarily sleek, and someone likened it to a flying potato. Since hearing that story, Mike and I have endearingly referred to it as the potato, sometimes even a sweet potato.

It still basically runs fine but it has served out its useful life with me. We were in need of a vehicle to get around in the winter and recently bought a Toyota RAV4, which is an exceedingly nice and elegant car compared to the potato. It has an actual CD player (rather than a CD car converter), heated seats, 4 wheel drive ...

Given my love of NPR and lack of desire to go through the process of selling a car, especially in this economy, I decided to donate the car to "my public radio station." They will take any car in running condition or not. It was surprisingly easy. But, I came home from work last night to find the car no longer there,

and I felt sad for getting rid of the car that got me to and from St Louis, transporting all of my earthly belongings, was safe, never got in an accident besides the driver-side mirror that got knocked off twice in Portland ... Anyhow, thanks Flying Potato, may someone else get as much good use from you as I did.