Pulling the plug

I call it The Revenge of the Car that Wouldn't Die. It started off as The Little Engine that Could..pretty cute..but that was way back in the mid nineties when it was still a 'baby'.. and then it became the Little Engine that Wouldn't... and then now, more than a decade later, it is just begging for EUTHANASIA but I the master am just too stubborn (and too poor) to let it go and gasp its last breath of carbon mono. Of course I speak of none other than my constant companion, PSV 744, Toyota Corolla 1990, who has been more loyal to me than ANY man. But it has been dying a slow death, in and out of ICU the past two years.. it has illnesses with no known cause such as the over heating every so many kilometers - the reason why I carry jugs of water with me the whole time. Over heating at least twice a day is now such a natural part of my daily life as a motorist.
What happened two nights ago though was part of my car's revenge, or plea to finally pull the plug. There I was cruising along the highway, just finished the Shaw Blvd underpass..then...a click..a swoooooshing sound, then engine went dead, but the car still kept careening away...good thing I had the presence of mind to veer towards the pavement. Anyway, I had it towed yesterday all the way till Oasis (what an appropriate name for a car repair shop)... verdict? timing belt. Verdict last year when exactly the same thing happened while I was speeding along Ortigas at midnight? ALSO the timing belt. Last week, had the muffler changed, P1,500. The other week, spent P13,000 to repair the clutch lining and other stuff that had to do with the clutch (PLEASE, I have not mastered the vocabulary yet of all that gobbledygook which mechanics use)... This week? easily another P15,000. All my mechanic friends at Oasis (yes, they are practically my friends now) were gathered yesterday around the engine of my car, like a team of surgeons in an IC unit..and they were shaking their heads and making tsk tsk sounds... the supervisor turned to me and gravely said.. "panahon na'. (It's time.)

I think I should just have it flung into the Pasig River to catch clams.