The Sad Saga of Max the car

I never really consider myself as poor, per-say, but when you have to chuck over 600 bucks into your car within less than a months time, your bank account does make one thing clear to you: You are poor. Max, I'm afraid, is approaching his last miles. Within the last year I've had to get fuel lines replaced, transmission lines fixed, new alternator installed, new belts installed, and, the latest, exhaust pipe and muffler replaced. This latest being confirmed by my exhaust pipe falling off on Sunday, right as I pulled into my drive way. the pipe rusted through and rotted out. However, this latest disaster is now fixed, and I have a shiny new muffler to boot! my car sounds so...quiet. Turns out when your exhaust pipe is rotting away and your muffler has holes in it, your car becomes very loud. As in, deafeningly loud. So yesterday I was able (after my brother wired up the remaining pieces of my exhaust so I could drive it to the mechanic) to finally get it fixed. I took it to a little muffler shop. It smelled horribly of cigarette smoke, and I'm almost certain I could have developed lung cancer had I had to stand there much longer. The shop was run by two seedy looking older men, who I'm sure were probably both at least 10 years younger than they looked and that chain smoking, as evidenced by the pungent stench that seemed to be ingrained into every available surface in their tiny little waiting area, caused them to age prematurely. They were very nice though, and showed me what was wrong with my muffler before fixing it. They seemed to agree with me that I should start looking for another car. Max does have approaching 170,000 miles on him. I suppose that that is an admirable amount of mileage for a faithful 13 year old little car. I did hear the Chevy Cavaliers run great until around 160,000 miles on them, and boy is that the truth. I've had Max for nearly 4 years now, and he has served me wonderfully, despite the little hiccoughs endured along the way. When it is time to move on to another car, I have a feeling that though I'll be excited to have a new (used) car, it'll still be sad to have to let go of my little black Max. I passed my driving test in him.He is the first vehicle I ever drove solo in. On the road that is. When I worked on the farm I drove the trucks through the fields and woods all the time. The first vehicle I had been rear-ended in (twice, actually). There are a lot of memories tied up in that little heap of metal and rust.I do dearly love my little Max, and hope I have many more miles with him before he finally dies.