Hi.  I'm Natalie's husband and I'm guest posting for Natalie, as she's knee deep in material at the moment.

Natalie wanted a Chrysler PT Cruiser from the day that the first concept car images were released.  She had it as the background on her computer for years. She bothered bugged badgered convinced me that a PT Cruiser would be the ideal replacement for her ailing but beloved Sherman (blue Nissan pickup).  Like any intelligent husband, I crumbled under pressure and agreed.

We ordered ourselves a PT Cruiser, silver, manual shift in May 2000.  No arguing over pricing, MSRP was the rule from the get go.  It arrived in October 2000, so fresh off the assembly line, the cargo bin under the passenger seat wasn't available (we never did get it).  Over the years, Natalie collected PT Cruiser stuff.  Coke cans with a PT Cruiser on it.  A PT Cruiser Hot Wheels car, silver. A superb die-cast model of a silver PT Cruiser.  A pink fairy pig that hung from the rear view mirror.


 Natalie loved her PT Cruiser.  It bought both our sons home from the hospital, as my car only had 2 doors. The first time we had my in-laws in the car, we took it through the car wash with them, and laughed when my mother-in-law accidentally opened a rear window.  For 14 years, that car had been part of our family.

This year however, marked the end of that relationship. As a 14 year old model of a car with limited desirability, a quarter of a million on it, and manual shift, we knew we wouldn't get much selling it and no dealer wanted it as a trade.  We wanted more than just to drive it to a wreckers.   We decided to do something special with the car. 





Fourteen years is a long time in car years.  We considered my nephew who just turned 16, but as we have to stay on speaking terms with my sister, we had to rule that out.  We tried to donate the car to the automotive program at my nephew's high school, but that didn't pan out either.  Then we saw the Kidney Foundation of Canada advertisement in this month's CAA magazine.

The Kidney Foundation has a program where you can donate a car, truck, or even a boat. You get a tax receipt for a minimum of $300 (depending on the ultimate value of your donation) and proceeds from the Kidney Car funds medical research and patient services for those living with kidney disease. Although we've been fortunate enough not to have a family member with kidney disease, this solution felt right.  It felt very right.

As it turns out, this world is a small one.  We learned just after making arrangements to have the car picked up by the Kidney Car folks, that a friend of Natalie's has a relative that has just received word that a kidney is available.  You can't imagine how powerful this felt.



So we watched the Kidney Car tow truck arrive in the snow this morning.  The cheery driver, who had already picked up a Volkswagen Cabriolet earlier today, handled the paperwork and hooked up our car.
As we watched the car get taken away, we were pleased to hear that the transplant surgery went well, with the expectation of kidney function within the week.

Karma ?  Carma ?  Seriously, you just can't make up stuff like this.
Link to the Kidney Car Program





BTW, did you notice that the first picture was of the model, not the actual car ?