A creepy thing happened on my way home from a Watson Township Board meeting Thursday night — my 2005 Prius crashed head-on into a deer on 18th Street.
I learned just today that my traveling companion of 13 years. almost as long as Bella the Wonder Dog, had perished. The insurance adjustor pronounced the vehicle a total loss as a result of the unfortunate incident.
I shoulda knowed it was in big trouble immediately after impact. It gasped and hissed and would not move any further forward or backward. I stopped the Prius and tried to get out to check on the deer, which was dead on impact as well.
It was the second time a vehicle I was driving struck and killed a deer, the first being back in 1983. After that one, My Chevette was repaired and like new again.
I understand it’s bad form to somehow treat the death of a car the same as the death of a person. But a strange part of me regarded the incident as such.
Back in 2005, I was searching for a new vehicle so I could give my beloved 1998 Oldsmobile Cutlass to my daughter. I checked with Ford, Chrysler and GM, asking anyone who would listen if they had any transportation that would offer 40 miles to the gallon of gasoline.
You see, it has long been my contention that a car or truck is a tool, something to get you from Point A to Point B in the safest and most economical manner possible. I care not a whit about whether the vehicle is sexy or not, whether it makes the girls swoon, whether it can go from zero to 60 mph in five seconds and not a whit about all the bells and whistles, wide-wheel spoke fenders, sponge-coated mud guards, a Wild West gun rack…
I am a cheap so-and-so, so I want my transportation to be functional, safe and economical.
I had never in my life before purchased a foreign car because I personally believed in buying American. I later learned that American companies have built our cars in Mexico and other countries because of cheaper labor and that Toyota actually has had some of its vehicles manufactured in the United States. This severely reduced the guilt factor.
After none of the Big Three could assure me of buying what I sought, I finally took the plunge in October 2005 at Toyota of Grand Rapids. The guy who sold the car had to show me and my wife how to drive it. We bought it without any credit arrangements, having reached the time of our lives in which we refuse to borrow for large purchases.
I suffered some catcalls: “Hey, Young! Whataya doin’ drivin’ a Jap car?” What I was driving was so unusual at first that whenever I encounter a fellow Prius and its driver, we would honk or wave enthusiastically to one another.
I also learned the Prius is not particularly adept in winter and icy road conditions. And it’s not a car you want to take boondocking for fishing trips. My old fishing buddy last summer on the freeway during a trip to Colorado alarmingly tried to prove it could go faster than 90 miles per hour. It could.
But over 13 years, the Prius gave me loyal, cheap reliable and safe transportation, even on long road trips. Despite warnings from friends who regaled me with scary but phony predictions of dire and costly breakdowns, I can say without fear of contradiction that the Prius was the best car I ever owned.
This is not the same as losing an old friend like Tom Hooker or Zack Moushegian, but it deserves a little commentary, an elegy for a non-human.
Are you OK? You need a second Prius, they fit your personality like a glove.