Farewell, old steed.

Here’s this week’s column. I’m seriously hoping it doesn’t come with hate mail from all the truck owners who think I’m disloyal. I’ve had about enough of that this week.

“Today we sold our truck, and I cried.

I’d like to blame this on hormones, but since my husband got a little sentimental as well, I’m pretty sure my eyes would have leaked no matter what my body was saying.

The thing is, we’ve been dying to sell the truck. It’s been around for eight years, is a total gas hog, and doesn’t have 4WD (which in Utah is nearly as unusual as being a Husky fan). No matter what its condition, it has to go before we move in nine months. A car deal came up that we couldn’t refuse, so the truck went up for sale.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had bad luck unloading this thing. Six years ago, while living in Maryland, we tried for an entire year to sell it and didn’t even get a nibble, no matter how low we priced it. It might as well have been free. We were trying to live frugally and needed a family car, so upgrading to a station wagon seemed like the best financial decision.

As fate would have it, it never sold, we paid it off, and I’ve been glad ever since. You’d be amazed at the things you can do when you’ve got a truck. (You’d also be amazed at all the unexpected “friends” you find that need to borrow it.)

In the past month, we’ve had and accepted six solid offers, then never heard from the buyers again. I now understand why car salesmen are so anxious to close the deal while you’re on the lot. If they don’t close the deal when you’re hot after a car, you’ll probably never be back. We were so sale-happy, we stopped bartering after the second offer and decided to take what we could get.

Finally last night, Mr. Truckmeister found our golden ticket, so today we met at the DMV to transfer the title.

When I pulled up and saw my man standing next to that big hunk of silver junk, filling out the paperwork, all I could see was Harrison being carefully loaded into the backseat as a newborn on his trip home from the hospital. I could see his little toddler bed in the back after leaving Ikea. I saw camping trips, and garage sale Saturdays, and Daddy pulling in at the end of the day. For years, just the sight of that truck has made my blood run wild because it meant my man was home. (That news was always either really good, or really bad.)

Quite frankly, I feel like we’ve sold one of the children.

I don’t get sentimental about objects very often, and you’d probably all be horrified at the quantity of memorabilia I’ve tossed over the years, but seeing our truck drive away without any blond heads in the back just about did me in.

I guess sometimes it takes a loss to make us look back and remember all the good times we’ve shelved. We’ve fought in that truck, made up in that truck, gone to the drive-in in that truck, ignored the movie in that truck…it’s been one of us longer than any of our babies. I’m sad to see it go.

Change. Inevitably, it happens.”