It came too soon. I only had my little Civic for eight years. I’d planned to grow old with the little fella. My little five speed manual, two door coupe, was small enough to get pretty good gas milage and be fun to drive.

There’s a responsiveness to a car with a manual transmission, a link between man and machine, that you don’t get in an automatic. They have no soul.

It made replacing my old Civic all the more painful. To save money we got a leftover/clearance 2012 Civic with, you guessed it, an automatic.

Preying on my weakness, the sharks smelled blood in the water and offered me a manual 2012 Accord Coupe for “about the same price.”

Anytime a car salesperson says that magical, almost too good to be true phrase, put a padlock on your wallet.

In this case, the mathematical formula for “about” is 3x / 2 (where x equals the price of the first car).

We got the automatic Civic.

As I was getting into the new car, my old car in front of me, off to the left. Stripped of its plates and my stuff (including my Democrats! sticker propped up in the back window), it looked abandoned – sad.

“Are you going to miss it?” The salesperson asked me, as I took a long last look.

“I already do,” I replied.