The Sale

Let's say, hypothetically, you have a car you want to get rid of. It's not a great car, since the owner pretty much ran it into the ground. 100,000 miles, driving on a spare, purchased in 1987 and literally NEVER CLEANED IN ALL THOSE YEARS. Not to mention never changing the oil or filters or anything.

Seriously, this car was not in good shape. Don't ask why I let someone donate it to the company for a tax write off.

Oh, my bad...we're being hypothetical.

So let's say that you're tired of moving this car around the neighborhood, in addition to your own clean, functional car, every time the streets have to be cleaned. Let's say you can't even stand to get in this car because it's so filthy inside.

You'd do pretty much anything to get rid of it, right?

You might take it to a Saturn dealership, only to have them tell you that it's in such bad condition that no dealership will take it. "Put a sign on it and sell it for 500 bucks," they may say.

Ah, but they don't see the costs of putting a new city sticker on this god-forsaken car. An expensive city sticker that is due in two weeks. And they don't see how you might not have any free time to be showing this piece of junk to gullible unsuspecting would-be drivers.

Maybe you call a junkyard, just to get that thing out of your sight. Maybe you don't make the best junkyard choices. Maybe you drive out to the southwest corner of Chicago. Say, Congress and Kolmar. A place where you, in your shiny truck, talking on your cell phone headset, listening to your Alanis Morissette CD while the air conditioner is cranked up, do not really belong.

When you see a man sweeping the street in front of the junkyard, you have no reason to believe that he does not work there. And when he asks you to roll down your window, you probably do. And when he asks what you want for the car, you'll say that when you called, the man said $100.

And when he pulls out $100 in cash and hands it to you, you, not wanting to A) leave your car alone in a neighborhood that is quickly resembling Dawn of the Dead (you know...with the zombies surrounding the busses, trying to get to the people inside...) or B) allow the girl who drove the car to enter the junkyard alone in a neighborhood that is quickly resembling Dawn of the Dead (you know...with the zombies killing all the pretty girls with reckless abandon...) or C) leave your car alone in a neighborhood that is quickly resembling Dawn of the Dead (you know...where leaving things in the middle of the street is a good way to have them eaten by zombies...), you probably take it.

And when the junkyard man comes over to you and says, "You were supposed to bring that car to me," maybe you tell him that this dude got there first, and you hadn't signed any sort of contract with him, because really, the truth is, you just want to get the hell out of there, because people are starting to gather, surrounding the newly purchased car saying things like, "Oooh...thass a nice car. You buy that?" and "Whass wrong wit it?" and "You gonna take me for a drive tonight?", and frankly, you're starting to get really nervous. Pictures of zombies and all dancing in your head.

Maybe the two of you get into the car feeling dirtier than you have ever felt, and pray that you make it out of the neighborhood alive.

And maybe as you drove away feeling dirtier than you have ever felt, you see the junkyard man arguing with the dude who bought your piece of junk car. Maybe you'll wonder what other options you really had in that sort of situation. Maybe you'll wish you had just pushed the car off a cliff in some sort of euthanaisan act.

Maybe, just maybe, you'll think twice about not taking care of your car. Because look where you end up.

In the ghetto. With zombies.