Cars

The wife and I have been car shopping recently. I've never bought a car. She's only bought one with her parents. The experience is very different from almost anything.


For one, I'm very used to buying things on sale -- sometimes you get a good deal, sometimes you don't for expediency's sake -- but cars are one of the few things left you buy through old fashioned haggling. And it's not something I think I'll be good at.


We need a new car because my old car isn't just my old car. It's my brother-in-law's old car. And before that it was the wife's car. And before that it belonged to somebody else. It's a 1994 Camry and, as the wife is fond of telling me, it's as high-end as you could get back then. CD player. Leather seats. Sun roof. Doors. Wheels. The Works.


The problem is that, in the last 14 years, something went wrong way down deep in the engine where it's soft like a woman. So it belches oil smoke when I start it up. And that oil smoke comes from a cylinder where the oil is burning. And every so often, it fouls a spark plug and I have to take it into the shop. It's embarassing. It sucks. I feel like I'm killing the earth and paying out the nose because my car isn't getting the gas mileage it should.

So we're looking for a new car. And at this point in our lives, with gas prices climbing daily, we're pretty set on fuel efficiency. So what do you look at? A Prius, of course.

Except that everybody else on the planet is trying to get one of those cars. We go to the dealership and they tell us they mark them all up. Why? Because they can. Are there any new ones? No. And they've pre-sold any new ones that will come in.

So we look at Hondas. The mpgs aren't as great, but they're not bad, either. And all of them cost...what's it called...oh, yeah: money. Which we don't have. I mean, we're not doing so bad we can't make payments, but we have other bills that currently use that money. And with a used Prius at $25k or a new Fit at $16k, it seems like a lot of money to fork over to not get what you want.

Now we're thinking about waiting and trying to get a new Prius next year, which means waiting until August '09 when the new ones come out, but I'm not even sure if we could put money down now to reserve one, etc. And in the meantime, I have to keep driving a moneypit around, leaving blue clouds of smoke in the parking garage and getting stabbed in the wallet every time I fill up.

Hell, I'd get a scooter if it made more sense -- i.e. my commute wasn't so long and fraught with 4-ton pickups driven by lunatics.

Can't somebody just invent a goddamn teleporter already? That's all I really want. Teleport to work, teleport home. Just so long as I don't have to fill the damn thing up with unleaded every few days.

Update

Nobody reads this thing anymore -- true or false?

Because I'm just going to scrap it if nobody is still stopping by.

Tribute

The wife's mother's family reunion was this weekend and I was pressed into service. I unloaded and reloaded cars, set up tables and chairs -- nothing too strenuous, really. The hardest thing I had to do was pass the time, since I didn't know anybody and nobody had much interest in getting to know me.

Of course Dr. Wife was busy with her mom and family, which left me mostly alone for the weekend. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for my brother-in-law, who kept things interesting with horseshoes and racism.

On Sunday, after an overly filling breakfast, we went to the cemetary to see some people I never met. And we talked, as we always do, about what we would like to be done with our bodies once we've died.

I used to say cremation, but now I think I like the idea of a green burial. No chemicals. Just put me in the ground and let me rot away to nothing. Would I like a headstone? Maybe. I don't know. I guess it's nice to give people a place to go to remember you.

With that in mind, here is what I saw on my way to work this morning.

"IN LOVING MEMORY OF LASHONDA"

LaShonda was lovingly memorialized in shoe polish on the back window of a purple Dodge Neon.

Rest in peace, LaShonda...until it rains or somebody decides to gauge the horniness of their fellow drivers via a honking poll.

Babies makin' babies

Last night, Dr. Wife asked me which one of us I thought would be the first to say, "Let's have kids now." I think she meant to say she thought it would be me. I, of course, think it will be her.

And it's not that I hate kids. I don't. I just don't want one now. And now has been going on for a while. Not sure how long it will last.

Funny thing is, I was thinking just the other day about how old I feel (physically) and how young and dumb (mentally). Is there a worse way to be and want to have a kid? Too old to play with it and endure the rigors of sleep deprivation and yet so unsure of how to even begin caring for the thing.

I'll be 30 in a couple of months, which is sounding weirder every day, and I am starting to understand what a mid-life crisis really means. Not that I'm going through one or think I will (I hope), but I look in the mirror or I'm around people in college and I think -- wow, I'm older than them.

I explained it to my friend Big Time as the Playboy Paradox. When I was 15 or 16, the girls in Playboy were worldly women, sexy and confident, and clearly not interested in some pimpled youngster like me. That feeling stayed with me through 18, 19 and maybe 20. But by the time I was able to drink and on through 25 and the present, I think of those girls as young girls, shallow and vain and clearly not interested in some dumpy middle-aged yutz like me.

When I go to the gym, I like to tell myself it's about getting healthy, but I know what I really want is to be thin, like I used to be. And I hope, too, that the fat in my forming jowls will recede and maybe I'll even look like I did in that picture of Moran and I at my brother's wedding.

Because when I look in the mirror, I hardly recognize this guy I see. I doubt he and I have anything in common. Because he's some old dude stuck in a boring job, while I'm supposed to be a young guy who's going places.

Any of you who REALLY loved me...

...could go ahead and buy me a subscription here.

Damnation I wish I had some of that money stuff I keep hearing about. It might be useful to have.