OK, I can’t keep it a secret any longer. I’ve got a confession to
make.
Here it is: For the first time in my 72 years of existence on this
planet, I BOUGHT A BRAND NEW CAR!
There. I said it. I’ll say it again less loudly: I bought a
brand
new car.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not proud that I bought a brand new car.
But
it’s an unlikely truth: I now have a car that nobody else has owned, a
car that nobody’s dog or baby has relieved itself on the seat of, that
nobody’s re-painted to cover up the rust spots, that nobody has backed
into a telephone pole or into a homemade grease pit in their garage. A
car that has never run out of gas and then coasted 237 yards right up
to a service station gas pump.
In short, a car with no history, no stories to tell.
I’ve bought lots of cars, but I’ve never bought a brand new one.
Brand new cars, I’ve always thought, were for people who hadn’t done
the math. I’d done the math, and I knew you could buy fifteen or
twenty used cars for what you’d have to pay for a brand new one.
Sticker prices in new car dealers’ showrooms made me initially
dizzy
and ultimately nauseous. But I would look at them anyway so I could
tell my family how many used cars we could buy for what one new one
cost.
And it wasn’t just empty talk. To show my wife and teach my kids
just
what I meant, I once owned seven used cars that I parked in our back
yard. And for all seven of them together I paid less than a third the
price of a brand new one.
Sometimes some of the seven even ran.
My kids, their sense of economy not yet developed, were dismayed by a
backyard with seven used cars in it. Rather than have their friends
over, they’d go to their friends’ houses and admire their friends’
parents’ new cars.
My wife was on the kids’ side. She said she might drive back to
her
parents if any of the seven cars could be depended on to start.
Consequently, all three of our kids grew up to become serial owners of
brand spanking new cars. For years, my wife and I were the only family
members with cars more than three years old.
But several years ago as I was entering my dotage (my wife’s
word), I
cut back to two cars: a 1990 sedan with 160,000 miles on the odometer,
and a 1984 station wagon with 202,000 miles on it. Still have them. I
go out and talk to them sometimes when nobody’s around.
And now, in addition to my two old friends, we’ve got a brand new
2006
model. I go out occasionally to talk to it, but it doesn’t seem to
give much of a damn about what I say.
|
The Truth, Mainly
It’s a much more complicated car than I’m used to. It’s a half
breed
or a cross breed or a hybrid or whatever they call them. It’s one of
those jobs which—if you ever learn how to drive it—is supposed to give
you 50 miles per gallon.
(Which calls forth a tearful memory of a Volkswagen diesel we once had
that got 50 miles to the gallon, but it, alas, died 15 years ago.)
Anyway, our brand new car is much more complicated than I’m used
to—and it takes some sadistic pleasure when I screw up trying to drive
it. It’s got a wicked sense of humor. To wit: two days after we
bought it, I drove it over to a friend’s house so he could see it. He
was properly appreciative—right up until it wouldn’t start when I was
ready to go home. I had to call my wife so she could tell me again how
to make it go.
Sometimes when I’m driving it, it stalls at traffic lights too.
But
it gets along just fine with my wife. She tells me I should read the
owner’s manual! Can you believe that? I, who have been driving cars
and pickups and tractors since I was 12 years old, should read the
owner’s manual? It is to laugh.
There was a time when cars knew who their masters were. But I’m
being
humiliated by this one. I’ve lost my confidence. So my wife does most
of the driving.
I still try, but it’s like a cave man trying to understand a
television set.
So the next time you see a befuddled old geezer behind the wheel of a
brand new high-tech car, be kind. If it’s moving, stay out of the way.
If it’s not, call my wife.
Retired English Professor Leon Satterfield writes to salvage clarity
from his confusion. His column appears on alternate Mondays. His e-mail
address is:
leonsatterfield@earthlink.net.
|
