The Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), better known as Cash for Clunkers, was supposed to go until November. Funding lasted roughly a week. Nice job on that one, guys. Good planning. This is from the same people who brought you the digital conversion rebate program–which was underfunded.
But rather than get in a government-related rant, let’s look at this a bit closer. MY CAR DIDN’T QUALIFY.
What the hell? I pay my taxes, I stand for the national anthem at baseball games, hell, I can even say the Pledge of Allegiance in Latin. America, why can’t you pay me back? All I ask for is $4,500 to go toward a new car, because let’s face it, my car just isn’t worth that.
In 2003, I got an 20o0 Oldsmobile Alero GLS, you know this baby. It was brown, so said the insurance card, yet if some people saw it in the right light, they’d say it was purple. No, my car is not purple. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) It had leather seats, CD player, moon roof and a spoiler. That’s right a mother f$%#ing spoiler–to keep that baby on the ground.
I know what you’re thinking. Yes, my car is good, it works well. Yeah, it’s a salvage and yeah the A/C crapped out on it twice and I refuse to get it fixed anymore. But it’s nearly a decade old. Sometime in college, I figured my days of driving 10-year-old cars were behind me.
My first car was a 1987 Dodge Caravan LE. That’s right, LE, meaning the top of the line. Unfortunately, I was driving the car in 1999–to high school. Half my friends didn’t make fun of me because I gave them rides home, the other half referred to my ride as “the rusty bucket.” You can only imagine the chicks that thing got me.
I digress. My current car, the Alero, is turning 10. I haven’t had any complaints with it (knock on wood) but the thing is by no means worth $4,500. And Uncle Sam was all set to overpay me for the car–except that it gets more than 19 miles per gallon combined city and highway, so no dice.
So, it seems the Awesome Alero and I are destined to be together for years to come, prowling the Eastern Seaboard. We’ll roam around like the lost souls that we are, following nothing but the creed I put on the car in the form of a bumper sticker, “Just A Pirate Chasing Booty.”
OK, well I’m not exactly following that one either.