R.I.P. El Diablo (aka: Monty the Cavelier)

In Memorium

So, some of you heard that I wrecked my car Monty (yes, that was his name even if you didn't know it). Well, it's true, I did. It was on the 18th of this month. Here's the story:

I was driving back from having dinner with my bff Katie, and I was heading west on hwy 201 at about 7:20pm. Some of you know that at this time the sun is directly in front of your face practically, so you don't see cars in front of you - you see a bright orange light and some shadows that you assume are cars or some sort of horrible monster. Usually they're cars. Anyway, it just so happens that there had been another accident that they police were still taking care of, so traffic was stop and go past there so everyone could "rubberneck" to see the damage. Once we passed the wreck, traffic started going faster. Thinking that we were done with the whole stop and go, I decide that I'm being completely blinded by the stupid sun, so I try to adjust my sun visor to cover it better. Well, because I was focusing on my visor and the sun, I didn't see the shadow cars in front of my come to a stop until it was too late. I had just enough time to see the cars, panic, slam on the breaks and then slam into the poor little Prius in front of me. Anyway, the people I hit yelled a lot - which I don't really blame them too much but I was afraid to talk to them because they were so angry - and one of the cops from the other accident came over and took care of us, but my car was leaking antifreeze and the driver's side headlight was dangling on the side of the car, so they had to tow it away and I had to call a neighbor to come to my rescue (thank you Lynsay!)

Now I didn't get a good look at the damage before it was towed away because frankly I didn't really want to know how bad it was - I was really upset about the whole thing and didn't want to make it worse. So the next day Jon and I (I got work off to take care of everything and see the doctor for whiplash) went down to the tow yard to look at it and the second I looked at it I decided that he - the car - was no longer Monty. No, now he was El Diablo. I'm convinced that this car is cursed and is not happy unless he's broken. Here's a rundown on his story:

1. When I bought him he had been a salvaged car from a front end accident, the damage reaching parts of the engine compartment as well as needing to replace the whole front end (fenders, hood and bumper).



2. After buying him, the air conditioning didn't work.



3. About a month after buying him, I was driving on Bangerter Hwy and after a stoplight was trying to shift from first to second and the clutch went down but didn't come back up. I had to drive from I-15 and Bangerter all the way to Redwood Rd in first gear because the clutch wasn't working. Apparantly a cable with clutch fluid had sprung a leak.



4. About a year after I bought him, while being polite at work and waiting for someone to pull out of their parking spot with plenty of room (keep in mind my car is in neutral and I'm just waiting), a Ford Explorer backs up into me. I saw him coming and blared my horn but he couldn't hear me over his music. He broke the bumper, the headlight, and dented the hood as well as the latch for the hood so it wouldn't catch on it's own - to close it you had to open the latch completely then shut the hood then close the latch. Then to top it off he gave me expired insurance and ran off, but because it happened on company property they couldn't even fine him for it!



5. A month (or less) after that, after Jon had bought a new replacement bumper and headlight (this is also when we found out that originally it had been replaced with 2002 parts instead of 2004), we were almost ready to paint the new bumper. We were at Jon's parents in Bluffdale (our house was still being revamped), so after wet sanding the bumper he told me to drive it out to our new house so we could paint it and that he would meet me there. Well, I got onto Bangerter Hwy and right about the time I hit 65mph, my hood flew up into my windshield, shattering the window inwards, wrapping the hood around the car and denting the top of my car in about 6 inches. Luckily there was about four inches under the hood that I could still see so I was able to pull over to the side safely. A cop drove by me and didn't even help, by the way.



6. Last winter - approximately 1 1/2 years after purchasing him - Jon is driving back from school. The car in front of him has to hit his breaks hard and is sliding a bit. Now even though there was more than 2 car lengths between him and the car in front of him, when Jon hit his breaks he slid all the way into the other car. He only needed about another foot to stop, and barely tapped the guy, but for some reason the other guys car didn't even have a scratch, but half of our bumper blew up/broke off. The cop just laughed at him for it because it looked so ridiculous.



And that brings us to the incident I first mentioned. So, it is with great happiness that I tell you that El Diablo has been declared a total loss. Hooray! Now, while this does mean that I have to buy a new car and I'm completely broke so that kind of sucks, I'm just glad that I'm not longer having to drive a kamikaze car anymore. I think Monty was just unhappy that he was yellow at first, and he had a trailer hitch that made absolutely no sense. Of course, we painted him black this year, and it didn't make a difference, so yeah. I love that Jon can paint and fix cars...Anyway, rest in peace El Diablo, your work is finished until they fix you and sell you to some other poor sap who can deal with your curse. :)