Knowing when its time to let go

We women have one small ‘weakness’ of developing serious emotional and sentimental attachments to inanimate things. It is what makes us the ‘special sex’. This was said to me by one grime and grease covered chap who had a permanently wide grin and called himself an artisan. Weaker sex you mean, I remember thinking at that point and deciding then and there that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. I had stopped at a garage in Newlands because my eternally faithful car had suddenly developed problems as I was driving in the rain for an important appointment. The wipers just suddenly stopped working. The temperature had gone above three quarters but the fan wasn’t kicking in. Worried the head would fry; I stopped at the nearest service station to have a look. The radiator cap for some reason had become loose and hot water was seeping out from under it. I think I must have been in shock because the other young handsome mechanic offered me a chair and asked me to sit a short distance away. They put my car on the pit, opened her up and started checking and doing all sorts of tests. It’s when the revs started that I began to get agitated. I probably even cried a little, to which the head mechanic found it necessary to share his witty words in the introduction above. I will admit it here and now, I LOVE MY CAR. And I will take criticism for it any day. Its not the prettiest nor the youngest there is, but I still care about it and have a real connection to it, not only because it was my first and I know what it took for me to buy it, but it has also been extremely faithful to me these two years – there is not a day it has failed to start on the first kick. Each time when I have driven around, I have always remarked how all the modern posh cars seem to be the ones whose lights just die, or are the ones you find breaking down or giving in to the potholes.