The timing could not be more perfect. We are a hairsbreadth away from paying off our primary car and getting out from under the crushing burden of a car payment. Financial freedom, right? Nope, now we need to get a new secondary car. It always works that way, doesn’t it? Get one thing paid off, another payment pops up to take its place…like a whack a mole, but in dollars.
We are looking at small cars for me to replace my rusty, trusty Honda Accord. I’m sure it will stay in the family, but after teaching three kids how to drive in it, it’s pretty much run its course…not to mention all those mysterious dings, dents, and scratches that seem to go hand in hand with teenage drivers. In their defense, though, it’s old enough that perhaps one of those dings or dents is from actually hitting a dinosaur.
It’s a picture perfect old car, with rust around the wheel wells, a radio that quit working two years ago, and a high pitched squeal from time to time, like a hamster is caught in the engine. (I checked. There’s not.) There are cigarette burns everywhere, which is really hard to imagine because I, the owner of the car, quit smoking 12 years ago. (when confronted, my then teenage son comes up with some whoppers, such as “a truck driver threw his cigarette out the window and it landed in the car.” Really. Really? That is the best you can come up with? Come to think of it, perhaps the burns are from the asteroid that killed said dinosaurs.
My husband and I are having a delicious time deciding what and where to buy. Nothing too big, such as the Lincoln Townsquare, but nothing too small, such as the Toyota Speck. We have a real life and need a functional small car, because we buy groceries, have a big black lab to take for shots, and family to chauffer around from time to time.
Meanwhile, I am daydreaming of what it will be like to have a car no teens will ever drive. The seats will stay clean and be positioned just like I left them, the radio won’t ever be turned to a scream-o station loudly (which has in the past, caused yours truly to startle and spill precious morning coffee upon starting it up) and any dings, dents, or scratches will be my doing. Or more likely the doing of some frenzied dork with a cart in the parking lot.
Plus, I have had this car for nine years. Nine. Long. Years. We both work, right? We deserve to have a pretty little car that can go through a car wash without losing large pieces of rusty Honda from the sides, or have the weather stripping peel off the roof of the car, only to have it flap down loudly on the windshield as I drove from the gas station. Embarrassing but true.
Stay tuned, the Great Car Search begins soon…subtitled OMG, that’s per MONTH??
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