Trading up

In high school, I owned a Volkswagon. It was a little dark red Fox, and I loved it. It was quirky and had lots of problems and had a manual transmission and was very fun to drive. Eventually it died on some black ice on a cold January night, and I traded it in for a boring silver Toyota, and the Toyota always seemed utterly devoid of personality by comparison.

It turns out that I am repeating that pattern as an adult. This week, I am giving up my little green hatchback Volkswagon, trading it in for a practical silver Toyota that will be (touch wood) reliable and get good gas mileage. It is quite possible that it will seem devoid of personality compared to my VW; it is also possible that, as a grownup who has to pay the bills and get to work on time and appreciates things like a working air conditioner, I will not care so much.

My Volkswagon and I have been through a lot together, and I thought I would feel sad saying goodbye to it. But like my old Fox it was a quirky car, and similar to some men I've dated, the quirks initially seemed cute but eventually grew to be tiresome (like the way it would randomly start beeping at me to close the doors when they were already closed, or the fact that one rear window had trouble opening).

As I mentioned in a previous post, one major downside to this decision is that I'll be spending much less time with my sweetheart of a mechanic. I've decided that the solution to this problem is for me to start making social calls, just to say hi. My plan is to make the first one tomorrow on my way home from dropping off the old car at the buyer's house and picking up my new car. It's been almost a week since the last time he saw me, so I think he'll be pretty excited.