You think your car has problems? Listen to this.

Up until last year, my family had a 1988 Toyota Camry, affectionately named Betsy. Kudos to Betsy for lasting so long, but her dying years really were ugly. Just 14 months ago, Betsy, the car died at the age of 29. Let me tell you about her quirks. She was quite a character, that Betsy. 

• Betsy's left blinker only worked when she was warm. This means from October to April her left blinker didn't work at all. That's not to say Betsy didn't attempt to blink, however. We knew she was trying when she would make an obnoxious buzzing sound rather than blinking.

• Betsy's air conditioning only worked when I was pressing the gas, which means we were very HOT when driving around town from May to September, especially since there is a stoplight or stop sign nearly every block.

• Betsy's trunk did not close all the way OR stay open all the way (without someone holding it). This means after it rained the car reeked due to a wet trunk. It also means I had to put groceries in the trunk one-handed. The trunk did, however, stay open a little bit. So if I had something heavy that I needed two hands for, I could SQUEEZE my torso in there without scratching my back (too much). Sometimes we had a stick to hold the trunk open to assist with this problem, but my son is very fond of sticks… And believe it or not, THREE auto shops attempted to fix, but could not fix, Betsy's trunk. She liked her rear the way it was, I guess.

•  Betsy's driver's seat was ripped to shreds. The buttons on the back of my jeans loved to rip Betsy's maroon material. And the zippers on the sides of my jacket loved to get caught IN that material.

Betsy, the car sure did have a sense of humor, but things started to get less funny when she really did start to die. Her downhill slope commenced with stalling whenever I first put her into "drive." She would do this several times until she got up to at least ten miles an hour. So I learned to exit my alley super fast. But then Betsy decided she wanted to do the same thing in reverse. So now she stalled when I put her in drive AND reverse. You can imagine how long it took me to get out of a parking lot.

Now, I know you're asking yourself, "Why didn't you just fix, Betsy?" Well, I'll tell you. In order to fix Betsy, we would have to spend at least $1600. And let's be honest. She just wasn't worth that much anymore. So we decided to let her live as long as possible.

I continued to "patiently" deal with this car. I "never" minded the condescending looks people gave me, nor did I mind looks of pity.

But then, Betsy started doing something else: she started stalling at stoplights too. And I wasn't kidding when I said my little town has a stoplight or a stop sign at every block. Now Betsy was just plain frustrating. It was definitely time to say goodbye. My husband didn't agree, so I told him he could drive Betsy if he wanted, but from now on I was only driving the truck. Well, my husband drove her for ONE DAY and do you know what? The very next day we went car shopping! Don't know why I hadn't thought of that earlier!