Any day now we will trade it in; we are just wait­ing for the phone to ring. I know how it will be. My father traded in many cars. It hap­pens so cleanly, before you expect it. He would drive off in the old car up the dirt road exactly as usual and when he returned the car would be new, and the old was gone, gone, utterly dis­solved back into the min­eral world from which it was con­jured, dis­missed with­out a bless­ing, a kiss, a tes­ta­ment, or any cer­e­mony of farewell. We in Amer­ica need cer­e­monies is I sup­pose, sailor, the point of what I have written.

–From John Updike’s “Packed Dirt, Church­go­ing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car”