goodbye, The Kristy Chrysler.

Our family has lost a member since all of this coronavirus stuff started: our Town and Country, The Kristy Chrysler, is no longer with us.  She has moved on to that flat parking space in the sky, where her emergency brake is no longer taxed, and her rear liftgate is no longer dented and rusty.

I mean, she lives somewhere else in mid-Missouri, and trucks around a family with six kids.  I bet she likes that.

See?  She likes to be playful and park by dinosaurs so that they're like, "Whoa! What is that metal bug?"

It all happened pretty suddenly.  She was working fine, and then we received word that she was due for the mandatory state safety check.  After looking her over, the mechanic said she would need thousands of dollars in necessary repairs, and we couldn't legally drive her again until we got them done.  (It didn't matter that she drove just fine, btw.)  We did get a second opinion from a mechanic we trust, who agreed that to pass inspection, we'd have to get those repairs done.  

So, while it was sad to see her go, we figured it was worthless to put that much money into a van that isn't even worth the cost of repairs.  A friend of ours helped us list her on Facebook, and the next day, we were officially a one-car family.  (I mean, a one-Kraken, no-KC family.)

Can I please just tell you how incredibly weird it is to drive a fifteen-passenger van literally EVERYWHERE I GO?  Solitary run to the grocery store for some kombucha?  Taking the Kraken.  Quick drive over to the library to pick up books?  Taking the Kraken... and then getting stuck in their PARKING SPACES FOR ANTS.

But, if there's a silver lining to this, it's that the view outside my living room window is no longer just some grass and a minivan obstructing the rest of the view.  Now I have a much more panoramic shot of my reclusive neighbors' weedy redneck yard!

There's also the silver lining of not having to ever deal with the Kristy Chrysler again, because though she was convenient in some ways, she was kind of a guerilla.  She broke down constantly, she was completely too small for us: the back bench seat was too narrow to fit three car seats across, so the outer two were wedged in and perpetually tilted toward the middle one.  Plus, the two captain's chairs in the middle row had been replaced by a bench seat, making getting to the backseat nearly impossible for the "over-30lb" set.

Crammed much?

Also, the hydraulics on the liftgate didn't work, so I could never figure out how to effectively load groceries into the trunk one-handed while I held the door up with my other hand.  Without fail, I'd end up getting clobbered on the head at least once per grocery trip, and it was especially miserable in the rain.

But we will miss her DVD player (though I'm glad the kids have detoxed from needing to be entertained in the car), her finnicky electric doors, and her truly well-designed center console.  (I still miss that console.  Console me.)  

However, while the Kristy was more normal-scale, and while I feel more conspicuous driving the Kraken everystinkinwhere I go, I also feel safer driving the massive van.  When I recently hit a large animal that ran onto the interstate while I was going 70 mph, it barely dented the side panel on the Kraken, whereas I'm honestly sure we would have been injured - or worse - if we had been in the minivan.  So, I suppose it's all for the best in the end.

Goodbye, The Kristy Chrysler.  You deserve a slideshow put to I Will Remember You, but I don't know how to do that, so just sing the song in your head (your engine?) while gazing at this picture with a look of far-off wonderment.