Why do abandoned zombie cars by the roadside get left behind by their owners?

I know a female PhD researcher, a quintessential highland flower in the academic circle.
She usually wears a simple white shirt, with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, looking cold and restrained.
She owns a Mercedes GLC, but I’ve never seen her drive it; she always walks or takes a taxi to the lab.
When colleagues discuss luxury cars and investments, she always sits quietly on the side, saying nothing, with a look of disdain and a sense of superiority in her eyes.
Everyone privately guesses that she probably comes from a wealthy family and doesn’t care about this tens-of-thousands-dollar means of transportation.
Because we live in the same neighborhood, until last weekend, she suddenly knocked on my door.
Her tone was unusually nervous as she said her Mercedes had been parked in the underground second level for a full two years, untouched, and now she wanted to get it out. She asked if I could go with her to take a look.
I thought she finally remembered her idle asset and was about to call a high-end tow truck or maintenance team to handle it.
So we walked into that dim, damp corner of the garage, one after the other.
The car was covered in a thick layer of dust, like a huge gray tomb.
She took a deep breath and forcefully opened the car door.
There was no luxury car fragrance, only a foul smell of mold and mouse droppings.
I thought she would immediately cover her nose and step back, disgusted, to wash her hands.
But instead, she threw herself into the driver’s seat.
She skillfully leaned down, reaching her hand into the dusty, black, dead corner under the seat.
Then she pulled out a big handful of yellowed overdue notices stuck together from moisture.
Then, right in front of me, with her usually delicate, slender, white hands that only handle test tubes and high-precision instruments, she manually peeled off the chewed, sticky black wires under the steering wheel that mice had gnawed.
Black oil, mouse droppings, and unknown mucus instantly covered her fingers.
At that moment, I felt my vision go black.
The usually aloof scientific goddess filter shattered into pieces instantly.
In modern terms, her sanity was rapidly collapsing.
While she was picking at those black, rotten wires, she muttered to herself in a nearly neurotic speed.
“Back then, I was broke and couldn’t afford the 7,000 yuan insurance, and one day I forgot to unplug the key, and the battery drained…”
“The more I delayed, the more I didn’t dare to deal with it, afraid of the 20,000 yuan parking fee, afraid of the annual inspection, afraid that the whole car would break down and cost tens of thousands to repair…”
Sweat beads appeared on her forehead, and her usually meticulously combed hair was disheveled, sticking to her cheeks.
Looking at her covered in black mud, suddenly erupting in a crude, even somewhat awkward survival instinct after two years of avoiding a few tens of thousands of yuan in costs,
I surprisingly felt a deadly attraction.
That cold, scholarly goddess and the bottom-tier penny-pincher’s seamless switch, the stark contrast, was frantically tugging at my nerves.
I have to admit, her raw, desperate reality—pushed into a corner by life and trying to struggle free—deeply struck my XP.
That day, we surprisingly managed to jump-start the car.
When leaving the garage, the security guard couldn’t find any record of this car entering after two years and, confused, simply raised the barrier and let it go for free.
She looked at the rising barrier, a strange, ecstatic smile appearing on her lips.
However, it wasn’t until I accidentally helped her open the trunk that hadn’t been opened in two years
that I realized that she had left the car unused for two years to avoid tens of thousands of costs.
Compared to the secret of “escaping reality” hidden in her trunk,
it was truly a small trick in front of a bigger one.