One view of the junkyard.

One view of the junkyard., originally uploaded by Jacob Coakley.

I went to the junkyard today. I do think it's the first time I've ever been.

Last July I bought a used '94 Ford Escort LX Sport wagon. It's teal. Anyways, the Japanese exchange student who owned it before me had let certain parts of it go to seed. Some things got fixed right away -- like the A/C. You do not have a car in Vegas in July and not have A/C. But other things lingered on, b/c I didn't want to have to pay people to fix -- like the inner door handle for the front seat passenger. The door worked, you just couldn't open it from the inside. This always made Jess laugh, b/c I'd have to walk around and open the door for her, and usually I'd forget so I'd wonder why she was just sitting in the car for a second or two before I realized I had to go open the door for her.

Interesting story about someone I work with. She's a little sheltered, and being that she's spent most of her life in NYC she doesnt' have much experience with cars. When I picked her up one morning to go to a conference here in Vegas, she expressed surprise that the door didn't work, and a little pique.

"You know," she said, actually sincerely, as if she was going to suggest something that hadn't occurred to me, but might actually help. "You, know, you could just go to a garage and they'll fix it."

"Yes," I replied, "I could."

But I didn't. B/c the labor would have been stupid, as well as the price on the part. Plus, I didn't think it was anything other than some broken plastic clip. I didn't feel like paying a mechanic to play around with it when I knew I could take care of it. If it was more than a clip, I'd have somebody look at it, sure, but until then? No. Nobody rides in my car enough for me to pay for that.

Well, last weekend I finally had some time off, and I decided to take a look at the car door. I opened up the door and, sure enough, it was just a plastic clip that attached a rod to the handle lever that had broken. So this week I called around and searched the Internet to find a little plastic clip, but no one carried them. I only found one on eBay, and that was $30, plus about $10 shipping. Once again, I was not going to pay that much.

So, that is how I found myself at a junk yard this Saturday. The very first Escort I went up to was a junked 95, but it had the same interior color as me, so I popped out the door handle, paid the guy $5, and put it in. So now my door works, and I've been to the junk yard.