Goodbye Honda, Hello Mazda

May 2002. That was when I first laid my eyes on a white, 1996 Honda Civic DX. I read the ad in the paper and asked my father to look at the car with me. It was a perfect car for me to learn how to drive manual on. I bought it there on the spot and for the next 4 years I would become very close with my car. I drove her to school, work, vacationing, and even brought her to Cross Country twice. She got 34 miles to the gallon, had a 6 disc cd changer, roomy interior, cute body and plenty of power. There were some great things about my Civic, but there were bad ones too, things that I just couldn't get over. Let's assume someone came to my passenger window and started to blab through the glass. I couldn't just push a button to unlock the door or roll the window down. I had to reach over and manually struggle with the window roller down thing and then struggle to get it up again. What a pain. But that was only the beginning. One day the SRS light came on which meant that the air bags didn't work any longer, because of this, I was unable to pass inspection and for the past two years I had to pay to get the car privately inspected to avoid failing at the dmv. The car, being a DX was also void of any assisted steering. Yeah, rack-and-pinion steering better known as "no power steering" or "my arms are going to look like man arms" steering. I would literally sweat when trying to parallel park or maneuver myself out of a 3 point turn. Even when all the bad things about her felt too overwhelming I would refect on all the places she took me to and all the great stuff we did together. We had been through so much that I couldn't give up because of a few inconveniencing traits. Or could I?
Jump to present day. Aggravated, exhausted, sweating when trying to get out of my driveway I do not understand why I short changed myself. Why didn't I just get a car with power-steering to begin with. I begin looking for a new car. Long story short, I lay my eyes on the most beautiful car I have ever seen. Perfect in every single way possible. Perfect body, price, mileage, amenities, everything perfect. So I buy her and begin plotting the fate of the Civic. Here it is..... I'm sitting in the kitchen of Geoff and Kathy discussing the Mazda Protege 5 I am about to buy from them when Geoff nonchalantly mentions that his neighbor, Mike is an avid Honda Civic fan and likes to rip them up and take them apart and soup them up. Blah Blah Blah. And so I mention my car and explain that really that's all she is good for at this point. Ears perk up and people start talking, emails start flying back and forth between me and the neighbor and the neighbor and the prior owners of the car I just bought. In the end everything worked out and the neighbor ended up buying my Honda just three days after I finalized the sale of the Mazda. I never had to put out an ad, never had to buy one of those cheap for sale signs, never had to write, obo, call me, come see it or any of that crap. Things just fell into place and happened, and it's nice. I have a new car that I love, the neighbor has an old car that I loved and he will love. Everyone got what they wanted and it stayed in a circle of only three people. Me, Geoff, and Mike. Two cars, three people and a happy ending.
Here are the specs:
2003
Mazda Protege 5
Electric Blue
32,000 miles
5 speed manual transmission