Goodbye, Yellow Sauna Box

We had a good run

It was 2007 when this yellow sauna box entered my life. Well, in the beginning, it wasn’t a sauna box. Instead, it was a neat piece of German engineering…made in Brazil, but that’s beside the point.

My 2007 Volkswagen Crossfox made me proud to drive around town in all its yellow splendor. Back in the day, the AC blasted away, keeping me safe from the 110°F heat my city is known for.

It would get me to work, buy groceries, and we even took a few trips to San Diego, Ensenada, and the Sierra Juarez forest.

Yes, things were good back then…until they weren’t.

Things started going south.

A few years ago, my then-partner decided it was time to get our son a bike, and I fully agreed. He drove to the store in my car and came back with a brand new mountain bike peeking out of my car’s hatchback.

After he arrived, he approached me and said, “There was a tiny issue with your car.”

The car had a safety measure that locked all doors once it reached a certain speed. Since the hatchback stayed open the whole time, something got fried.

And that’s when things started going south.

Driving the car the correct way.

Bit by bit, stuff began to fail. First, it became impossible to remotely open and close the doors. Then, it was the stereo. Sometimes the car would refuse to start, even if the battery was okay. A bit later, the windows wouldn’t roll up or down.

I tried to keep up with fixing things, but there was no end to it. And once the AC died…all bets were off. The car became a sauna box.

My then-partner kept telling me that all of this was happening because I wasn’t driving the car the correct way. Sure, I’m not the perfect driver, but this was just another little detail in his long list of things Gaby was never good at, so, at this point, I was just rolling my eyes.

However, the kicker came a little bit a year after I left him.

Could the sauna box be fixed?

I decided it had been enough: I needed my car to work properly. Or, at the very least, I needed to be able to roll down the windows so I wouldn’t dehydrate in the middle of August as I drove to work.

I took it to a repair shop, and they did their best. They told me there was some serious electrical issue — gee, I wonder why — and it would take a lot of time and cash to fix it, should I determine that’s what I wanted.

That’s when I came to a realization: it was time to stop the agony.

So, I decided I was going to keep on driving it until it died on me or I reached the point where I could afford a new one, whatever happened first.

Well, it turns out the car didn’t have much life left on it.

Goodbye, Yellow Sauna Box.

A few weeks ago, I was getting ready to buy some groceries. I got in my car and tried to turn it on.

Nothing happened. I didn’t even hear that sound you get when the battery is dying.

I sighed and asked myself, “Is this it?”

I moved some stuff around (don’t ask for details, I just shifted things here and there, okay?), but the car didn’t come back to life. I thought about the last time something like this had happened and the excessive amount of pesos I had spent to fix it.

Then I remembered, “We said no more.” No more.

And, just in case I had any doubts, two days later, as my dead car was parked on the street, unable to move, someone threw a rock through the passenger’s side window. It felt like a big last, “Time to move on” from the universe.

So, I called a guy, and he towed it away…and that was the last time I saw my yellow sauna box.

The Aftermath

I know some people go through plenty of cars in their lifetime. However, this was only my second car, the first one being a 1980-something Chrysler K car that was a nightmare to maintain.

In the final years of its run, my yellow sauna box made my life very difficult. However, in a way, I’ll always think fondly of it.

While my relationship was dying, whenever I needed a respite from the tension of it all, I would drive my car around, listening to music and just trying to figure out how the heck I was going to get out of the situation I had gotten myself into. I did a lot of crying behind its wheel.

And, on the day it all ended, while I was scared to go back home, I sat in that car for hours, talking to a friend on the phone, until I realized I couldn’t keep living in this fear.

So, yeah, that car and I had history.

And now, it has become a symbol of something else.

I’m 41, and despite having worked since I was 19, I do not own a home, I no longer have a car, and I’m eager to change careers even though that could cause severe financial disarray in my life.

Growing up, I was told that I should aspire to settle down, have a family, and, from my 30s and on, just coast through life until it came time to die.

But all of that feels like a ton of bullshit now. It probably always was.

So, in true Gaby tradition of projecting meaning into stuff that probably doesn’t have it, I’m taking the death of my car as a sign that letting go of all expectations is the healthiest thing I could do.

Everything they told me about how I should live my life turned out to be a lie, and now I find myself in what some would call a midlife crisis. However, in a surprising turn of events, I am no longer scared.

I am excited.

Oh…and I’m also looking for a new car.

What? You want more? Why? Okay, it’s your brain. If you really, really need more of me, you can find it here.

Please, reader, just the tip…look for the “Enjoy the read? Reward the writer” section, and you’ll be able to send me a little something that will help me devote more time to my writing and to pay for all of the Ubers I’m taking while I get a new car.