Mazda Extraordinare: A Story


About a year ago Amy and I moved into our house way down in Newnan,
and I started driving 35 miles to work everyday.  Now, 35 miles each
way in Atlanta traffic isn't as bad as it sounds, as long as you're
coming from the right direction.  As it turns out, Newnan direction
is a pretty good way to be coming.  Depending on the time of day,
time of year, weather, etc, I can make the trip in 40 minutes, or it
can take 2 hours.  Most of the time it takes 45-60 minutes, and I
don't mind.  I sit in the car and listen to music.  It's cool.

However, I quickly realized that Nancy's 14-15 miles per gallon was
going to be a very bad money eater.  Basically, I'd be burning 4
gallons a day, or $8 at the then current gas prices.  So, just after
Elizabeth came along, Amy and I bought a car.

It was my first car buying experience, and you may recall how little
I know about cars.  But I did my research, considered the options,
and bought a '91 Mazda 626 with 185,000 miles on it.  It was $800,
but the mechanics seemed to be fine.  The poor thing had been beat
around a bit, but dings just give character.

After a couple of months the starter gave out.  Now, I'm not gonna
go spend $400 so someone can replace a started in an $800 car, so I
did some more research, bought a book and a starter, and replaced it
myself!  It was cool, "reviving" a poor dead beast.  Since then, and
in the interest of saving money, Amy and I have been doing all the
maintenance on our cars, changing oil, replacing breaks, and reading
nice stories to them.  Mostly the stories are about what happens to
cars that break down; how they're turned into scrap metal and melted
into oblivion.  I think these moral-boosters help their performance.

Recently, one of my co-workers returned from the Kennedy Space
Center in Florida.  He had found one of these automatic key
chain-etching machines.  You type your message into the machine,
insert your credit card, and the machine scratches your message onto
a nice shiny dog tag-ish deal you can use to decorate.  When Rick
got to the machine, it said "Insert your Credit Card," so he did,
and it spat out a key chain immediately.  Apparently someone had
changed their mind.  So Rick has this key chain that says "Morgan."
I told him it could be worse.  If you go stick your credit card in
random slots, you'll be lucky not to get "Syphilis" or "Crabs" or
something; "Morgan" is comparatively nice.

Anyway, we decided that the Mazda's name is now "Morgan 800".  He's
a nice little car with some serious pep, but he tends to over heat
too much.  And now you know about Morgan.