Curtains for Bonny

Bonny, my `94 Pontiac Bonneville, finally kicked the bucket yesterday on my drive home. I’ve written about her recently – about an accident for which I still have not secured any funds for due to a State Patrol officer’s form-filling failure (damn you!). She was unable to deliver me home on this last trip; she instead choked on her last gulp of tap water, siphoned her last gallon of gasolene, puffed her last breath of life-giving smoke, and slung an otherwise content rod into proverbial ‘hell.’ You see, these last remaining miles have been riddled with problems. The water pump leaked like a sieve – I had long-ago given up on coolant and instead just continued to add a gallon or more of water to the system at every start. Ever since I had the gas pump replaced, Bonny has guzzled her fuel like a frat-boy on Spring Break. That, and if I got down to a 1/4 tank, I was unlikely to start the car again. There have also been these new ‘sounds’ popping up on a daily basis. The latest noise arrived the day before her departure and gave cause to believe that the rear bearings in one wheel were shot. I can add that to the opposite wheel in the front whose bearings were already shot. Just before the incident, some new ‘gurgling’ sounds began in the bowels of the engine. I coaxed and prodded as the oil pressure slowly dropped to red-line levels. When smoke smelling of burning oil came from under the hood, I knew that I should prepare myself for the end. I was fortunate enough to have made it to a relatively unused neighborhood at which to quiet the racket. Just as I neared a subdivision, the oil pressure bottomed-out and the engine shut itself off. So brave was she that in her dying moments the engine made futile, wheezing attempts at continuing to my demands. I, the hard-loving slave-driver; she, the (now ugly) wreck of road hard machinery. She is no longer in pain.