Last Thursday night as I was driving home from the taco bus, my oil light went on and stayed on, blinking at me (yelling, really), causing mystomach acids to churn and my blood pressure to rise. We made it home and Dina, Hayward, and I checked the oil: empty. Completely dry. Since June, when I last changed my oil, all of it completely drained from my engine.

So I add a couple of quarts and took the car into the shop the next day, and they told me that it was leaking in three places and would cost over $400 to fix. I paid $750 for this damn thing 4 1/2 years ago, and just 10 months ago dropped $600 on a new alternator. These days I’m spending way more money on maintenance than the car warrants. So I decided to buy a new one.

Here’s what I got:

Of course, I didn’t really drive it to the beach, and our Washington beaches don’t look like that anyway (our beach bunnies wear waders and rain jackets). But I did buy a new red Prius. This morning on the way to work I averaged like 44MPG, or something ridiculously high for stop-and-go traffic, and a lot of people report >50MPG on longer trips, which kind of makes me look forward to my December drive to Portland. It’s surprisingly large and roomy, and you sit pretty high in it, so sometimes I feel like I’m driving a small SUV around, which makes me feel superior to other drivers.

First new car. First I’ve financed. Holy crap. I just spent soooo much money. I think I’m going to puke.