seXterra the White

September 30, 2009 9:42 AM

esterday morning, I got ready for work, walked out to my car, got in, turned the key and . . . it started normally. But, as I was backing out of my spot, it seemed that the car was being extremely sluggish. That's when I realized that, although the car had started fine, it had, at some point, stopped running. The radio was still on, so it wasn't immediately clear to me that anything was wrong--I couldn't hear the lack of engine noise or whatever. After my ham-fisted attempts to diagnose and correct the problem failed, I had the thing towed to the Car Care Clinic, the only mechanic in town I trust.

About an hour later, they called me back with the diagnosis. Apparently, my timing belt had crapped out. This was, in itself, an expensive problem because, apparently, when you build a Nissan Xterra, you start with a timing belt and then build a car around it. But my mechanic had much more dire news than that: on cars with engines like mine, it's sometimes the case that a blown timing belt results in serious damage to the engine itself. The mechanic told me that he'd be unable to tell if this had happened on my car until after he replaced the belt. I told him to go ahead and replace the belt, but I knew what had happened: the seXterra had driven its last mile. If my engine was fucked, it simply wouldn't be worth fixing it. I started the mourning process.

The seXterra and I have been together for seven years. I got it after test driving only a few other cars, all of them Xterras. I was excited and, in that excitement, I made a rash decision on a very large purchase. Sometimes love makes you do stupid things.

The vast majority of the times that two people get married in Vegas after spending just one drunken night together, they regret every second of it and can't get the thing annulled fast enough. But it seems to me that out of all those stupid people making all those stupid decisions, there have to be at least a few couples that actually make it. And that's what it was like for the seXterra and I: the chances of buying a wonderful car by accident is probably very small. But I committed the seXterra, and he's never let me down. Or, at the very least, he's let me down a nearly negligible number of times in the years we've been together. He never cheated on me, it's just that he broke a promise here and there. It happens. Sometimes your fuel pump dies. Sometimes your battery dies. It doesn't mean you're a bad car.

The fact remains that the vast majority of the times that I've sat in the seXterra's driver's seat and turned the key, he responded by starting right up and driving as far and as fast as I asked him to. He carried me and my friends across the country while towing all my possessions behind him. He took Mr. Vice, Mr. Utah, and RPM safely to Florida and back--fifty hours spent driving in two nonstop chunks. He's picked people up and helped people move and provided a place to sit and talk. He's played all my favorite music, and he didn't complain when I drove him through cinder pits or bumpy mountain trails. He looks extremely badass with all four wheels off the ground. In my imagination, he's even been an offensive lineman for the Badgers.

And all of this in spite of--not because of--his maintenance record.

I thought about all of this as I sat there thinking about what car I could possibly get to replace the seXterra. I'd always figured that I'd get another car some day, but I figured that I'd get an additional car, not a replacement. I wanted a car to drive during the summer so that the seXterra could rest. I didn't want to replace him. But that's what I had to start thinking about doing. I even considered buying his exact clone. But I knew that none of it could bring back my reliable, dependable, extremely badass car.

I waited nervously for the call from the mechanic, the call I knew would mean the true end of the best car I've ever owned. And when it came, i was baffled: the seXterra lived! The engine was fine! The belt replacement was all it needed! That and a little power-steering fluid!

I went to the place, paid my bill, and got in the car. Everything was right where it used to be. He had developed this issue where almost every turn made a wookiee sound, but that was gone. Sitting behind his steering wheel was like being home again. Only now home was new and improved.

The seXterra died. But he came back and he was better. So now he's not the seXterra, he's seXterra the White.

Except that he's still red.

8 Comments

kristin said:

LOL. You are such a nerd. But it's awesome about the seXterra.

September 30, 2009 10:35 AM

chelsadilla said:

i'm gonna miss the wookiee noise...but i would have missed the seXterra more.

September 30, 2009 11:03 AM

frank x. said:

I always thought the sexterra was a girl, not a guy. Not that there's anything wrong it. I'm sure you two will be very happy...

September 30, 2009 3:36 PM

Lauren said:

Weezer happened to come on while I was studying this week, and immediately I was transported back into the backseat of the seXterra, on our way to Phoenix, with Weezer blaring...and then cutting up small branches of pine tree to put under the seXterra's wheels so we could it out of the snow...and you honking the seXterra's ridiculous horn as I came out of my dorm. Good times in that car!

September 30, 2009 5:34 PM

Utah said:

"Look to my coming, at first light, on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the East."

-SeXterra the White

September 30, 2009 6:55 PM

Dee said:

hahaha. great post! but if this happened to me, i would consider it a warning to prepare for the future.

do you remember if we drove the seXterra that time we were going to go to outback for chris' bday, but instead went to the one with the singing waiters?

October 3, 2009 9:18 AM

Ismael Tapia II said:

Dee,
While the car was in the shop, I had them address some other issues that I'd been neglecting, and I've resolved to do less neglecting in the future.

And yes, that was absolutely the seXterra. God, the look on Mr. X's face was just spectacular. That's definitely one of my favorite seXterra memories.

October 4, 2009 10:33 AM

Dee said:

that's where i was going with this. having missed every single road trip ever taken in that vehicle, mr x trapped in the back, looking wildly around and saying "hey, you passed it. YOU PASSED IT!" absolutely tops my list of seXterra memories.

hopefully the parting day is still a long way off.

October 5, 2009 5:37 AM

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