Sick To One’s Engine

(I am moving six hours away from home for grad school. This involves packing up my one-bedroom apartment and moving my furniture two hours away to a relative’s house for storage, plus getting rid of my car. I talk to my sister, who amazingly offers to come down and help and get her friend to drive the moving truck, after I told her I wasn’t sure I could do it. She, her friend, and my nieces, ages two and four, drive down to help. My car gets picked up shortly after they arrive by a guy with a flatbed truck. My nieces sit on my porch, fascinated, and very concerned about where my car is going. I try to explain by saying I don’t need the car anymore and that it’s very old and run-down, but I can tell they don’t quite get it. For backstory, my sister’s friend is a mechanic and drives large diesel trucks for a living, and the girls know this. Hours later, after everything is unpacked and in storage, I am playing with my two-year-old niece in the backyard. An ambulance drives by with its sirens on. My niece stops to watch.)

Niece: “Fire truck!”

Me: “That’s an ambulance, honey. It’s taking someone who is hurt or sick to the hospital.”

Niece: “Auntie’s car! Hospital!”

Me: “Right, you saw my car get hauled away this morning.”

Niece: “Hospital. Sick.”

Me: “Uh…”

(At this point, my sister’s friend walks over to us, having heard the conversation.)

Friend: “[Nieces] were very worried about your car. They kept asking me where it went. Finally, I had to tell them that the guy took it to the hospital because it was sick, so I could fix it, just so they stopped asking me the same question over and over!”

Me: “Well, you’re not wrong, except I’d classify it as terminal!”