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Feeling thoughtful.
I got a new (to me) car.
Since 2004, I've been driving a 2002 Honda Civic, and I drove that thing to destruction. It ran okay, though the front suspension was so far gone that by the time I pulled it into the CarMax parking lot a week ago, the smallest bump would cause the front end to bottom out. Hitting a bump while travelling at speed would cause it to drift, and cornering was - not a nightmare exactly, but you could tell that the nightmare wasn't beyond possibility. They gave me a thousand dollars for it, god bless 'em - the car buyer's version of a sympathy fuck, I'm pretty sure - and it would not surprise me to find that they drove it up a ramp straight into the dumpster.
Through work, here, I got a line on a granny car, a 2004 Mercury Sable with less than 60,000 miles on it, and for a good price. It's a top end Sable, easily the nicest car I've ever owned. Seritas loaned me $4000 and I scraped together the rest of the asking price, and took possession two days ago.
It's got a leather interior and wood trimmings. Double-overhead cam, 3.2 litre engine. New tires. A trunk that'll hold a couple of bodies at least. Premium sound. Power everything. It rides like it just came off the showroom floor.
The thing is, I hadn't really given any thought to the car I was driving. Oh sure, I knew it could be dangerous to drive, but I was familiar with its idiosyncracies and we got along. It was small and zippy (for a four cylinder) and only the second car I ever bought for myself. (The Saturn and first minivan don't count, since they were "family" vehicles.)
At nearly fifty years old, driving a Japanese compact car was ... well, it felt like ... like the cars I drove in college. Small, flexible, quick, perfect for getting around campus and the occasional road trip to Omaha. It wasn't comfortable, but it did the job. The Sable is a mid-size sedan, and it feels like a grown-up's car. A car that isn't as fast or fleet, it's bigger, slower, takes its time and means business. And it's comfortable.
Since 2004, I've been driving a 2002 Honda Civic, and I drove that thing to destruction. It ran okay, though the front suspension was so far gone that by the time I pulled it into the CarMax parking lot a week ago, the smallest bump would cause the front end to bottom out. Hitting a bump while travelling at speed would cause it to drift, and cornering was - not a nightmare exactly, but you could tell that the nightmare wasn't beyond possibility. They gave me a thousand dollars for it, god bless 'em - the car buyer's version of a sympathy fuck, I'm pretty sure - and it would not surprise me to find that they drove it up a ramp straight into the dumpster.
Through work, here, I got a line on a granny car, a 2004 Mercury Sable with less than 60,000 miles on it, and for a good price. It's a top end Sable, easily the nicest car I've ever owned. Seritas loaned me $4000 and I scraped together the rest of the asking price, and took possession two days ago.
It's got a leather interior and wood trimmings. Double-overhead cam, 3.2 litre engine. New tires. A trunk that'll hold a couple of bodies at least. Premium sound. Power everything. It rides like it just came off the showroom floor.
The thing is, I hadn't really given any thought to the car I was driving. Oh sure, I knew it could be dangerous to drive, but I was familiar with its idiosyncracies and we got along. It was small and zippy (for a four cylinder) and only the second car I ever bought for myself. (The Saturn and first minivan don't count, since they were "family" vehicles.)
At nearly fifty years old, driving a Japanese compact car was ... well, it felt like ... like the cars I drove in college. Small, flexible, quick, perfect for getting around campus and the occasional road trip to Omaha. It wasn't comfortable, but it did the job. The Sable is a mid-size sedan, and it feels like a grown-up's car. A car that isn't as fast or fleet, it's bigger, slower, takes its time and means business. And it's comfortable.