7 October 2011

The Lie: We don’t need a new car. I like the car we have now.

The Truth: I hate the car we have now. Its color is “eggplant” (i.e. somewhere on the uninspiring continuum between purple and brown), and it smells like plastic and old milk. I hated it when my dad bought it twelve years ago, I hated it when he began to realize that he hated it, and I hated it even more when he offered to sell it to me, confident that I couldn’t afford to say no. At the time, Olivia was three and Troy was gestating, and a Subaru wagon made a lot more sense than my rapidly deteriorating Jeep. I’d do anything to have the Jeep back… or to have another Jeep… or any other car, really, particularly one that’s never contained a child’s car-seat, because once a car-seat has resided in a vehicle for more than six months, said vehicle will forever and inexplicably smell like plastic and old milk.

Sadly, my mechanic assures me that the Subaru is in fundamentally good shape, so I can look forward to several more years, at least, of feeling both emasculated and nauseated anytime I drive anywhere.

Comments

  1. Great minds must think alike. I totally know where you are coming from regarding station wagons.

    Thanks for this post, you keep giving me the best ideas for my own blog. Keep up the good work and I’ll start giving you the credit.

  2. Jeanine says:

    I drive a Toyota minivan and nearing 100,000 miles. Its been a great car but the darn thing rattles and squeaks constantly. The kids are so embarrassed and say “we need a new car.” I say what you say, but the fact of the matter is that we are broke. No new car any time soon, sorry kids! Reality sucks and one day they will know….

  3. Paul Gilder says:

    You have my sympathies. I’ve had my fair share of crap cars! Just on the note about a car never being the same having had a baby seat in the back, I thought you might appreciate this post from my blog…. http://tamingtoddlers.blogspot.com/2011/07/cleaning-cars-speeding.html
    Crumb central, gotta love it!
    Anyway, keep up the good work, great blog, really, really enjoying it!

  4. Nami says:

    Oh yeah, my husband remedied the car problem by crashing it. That might have been a little extreme but we haven’t experienced a subway ride that smelled like “old milk” yet.

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