Cue the mysterious music associated with the Brady Bunch's trip to Hawaii....
Remember this episode?
Mike has to check on the construction of a building that his construction firm is building and it so happens the building is in Hawaii, so he takes the whole family along. However, ancient Hawaiian superstition begins to plague the family when Bobby discovers an ancient taboo idol Itiki)that brings bad luck to those who touch it. During a surfing competition, Greg wears Bobby's taboo idol and "wipes out". Alice throws her back out Hula-ing while wearing it. Peter wears it and has a huge tarantula crawl on him. Soon after, Greg, Peter and Bobby learn of the ancient superstition from a construction worker, Mr. Hanalei. This leads the boys to search for an ancient burial ground to return the idol to break the curse.
Similar to the curse of the Brady's Tiki - the Dixons were cursed by a far more expense taboo - the Jaguar. We found it at the car lot - not seeking it out, but as a way to replace one very high car payment and one paid-off car with 2 smaller payments. Much like the Tiki, it was fun, drew curiosity from people who saw it (I especially liked rolling up to Walmart in my smooth black Jag..hahaha!) But, also like the Tiki, the Jag is believed to have carried bad karma - evil luck - whatever you want to call it... It was cursed (at least I think it was.)
The first "wipe out" with the Jag was 3 days after purchasing it, Timm drove it to his well-paying engineering job, and was let go. Given the stanch decline in building/development, he was forced to switch careers and became a teacher (a wonderful necessary career that is drastically under paid!) I could never quite forgive the Jag for that trial... :) With what I believe to be the Jag-induced career change, paying for the Jag became very challenging. It wasn't that the payment was that high - although I could have done without it given our new smaller budget, it was the maintenance. Tires were 2 times the price of normal tires, oil changes, alignment... And don't even get me started on the windshield wipers... (seriously - who designs a car where wiper blades are part of the entire wiper housing... $35 Bucks May - NON_REFUNDABLE!)
A month ago, when the coolant reservoir had to be replaced, we were able to reflect and see how far we had come in our journey (we replaced it ourselves. Not too shabby for two very non-mechanics), and also revel that in a short period, the Jag would be returned to the ancient burial ground and hopefully the curse would be broken.
So Tues, I drove the Jag down to the dealer. Not a tear was shed. Not one glance back. I hula-ed on out of that dealer as quickly as I could!
Now if only I could end my journey as the Brady's did with a conch shell horn and a nice luau.
But alas in 4-6 weeks I can expect the curse to reach from the grave and serve me up a nice fat "final bill" for those items beyond "normal wear and tear" (which is evidently synonymous with retired people parking it in the garage!)
Curse you Jaguar. I will forever loathe you!
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