Close the book

We lost a member of our family this week. The Jeep was with Dave since 2001, pre-911, pre move to California, pre meeting me. It has traveled across country with us, moved us out of various apartments, taken us surfing, been loaded down with wood for projects, been with us to middle Georgia to pick up bees, taken us to the drive in movie, taken us to Mexico, picked up our Christmas trees, pulled trailers, pulled our boat in NY, and over one hundred thousand miles of other adventures. This was a decision that we had deliberated about for two years and three Savannah summers of no air conditioning for Dave. I cannot count how many times he's come home from work soaked through his work shirt with sweat. We seriously considered keeping it all polished and clean with the top off in the garage for beach trips and summer night Mellow Mushroom rides downtown...but we already have a car in the garage that we do not use very often, and I think the Volkswagon has a slight edge on the Jeep in sentimentality.

 

Selling this thing was like interviewing people for adoption. 'What did you think about that one?' 'I don't know, he lives close by so we'd see it all the time...I'm not sure he would take good care of it'. Really? It's a car. But it's not a car. It has our memories in it. Closing the book on it was like closing the book on a chapter of our lives. We ended up selling to a family from Florida that bought it for their oldest daughter. They seemed happy with it, and it's going to be her primary transportation, so we hope she'll take care of it...and at least it will have some mild Florida winters and get to ride with it's top off a lot. We took a picture of the baby in it and removed the mexican bobbing head gord turtle that has been in it since we bought it in Ensenada - and then the new family drove it away. I had to go inside, I couldn't watch it go....

 

Tuesday I had no car. Dave took mine to work for the day and we headed to the Honda and Toyota dealerships after work. Baby still fits in her infant car seat, so we brought it along so that we could test drive as a family. I should mention that I hate car salesmen and buying cars from dealerships in general. I did a stint with Nissan in college - it's all smoke and mirrors and finance guys peering down like St. Peter from their behind-glass work stations. They taught us things to say on test drives to sway people away from the competition 'see how it handles when you go around a corner, the focus will shake a bit when you do that'. The manager that I worked for was this greasy dude who did coke all the time...no offense to greasy people or Coke do'ers...it was just a really weird person to send to the dealership in College Station, Texas. He was all spastic toward the salesmen and sexist toward the women and would go at full speed in his golf cart around the dealership. They taught us to look for people like Dave and I...the nice family ('ask what they do'), with the baby ('talk about safety a lot'), Dad's in finance ('keep mentioning that he's a smart guy so you're not going to beat around the bush'). On the way there I was questioning Dave as to whether or not he should be wearing his nice watch.

 

We were looking for a hybrid, seeing as how the Jeep got 4 or 5 miles to the gallon (kidding - 12 or so) we were ready for something a little more efficient. At my suggestion we drove the Honda Insight (claustrophobia called - it want's it's car back) and the Honda Civic (no hatchback - can't shove trees, tv's, mattresses, large dogs, excersaucers, strollers, bicycles, cages filled with chickens, the miniature goat I want, etc. in a trunk). Dave was sold on the Prius before we got to the dealership, and as much of a sceptic as I am about all the hype, I liked it too. It has a nice, big backseat and as much as 'bland beige' is not my favorite color, the interior is really soft...like flannel sheets...or faux suede or something. They are all snazzy with their bells and whistles, and there is this really cool area that a purse can sit between the driver and passenger seat. The car sold itself (no thanks to Sven...or whatever his name was...should be Sven...less time working out, more time reading books buddy). It took until ten o'clock to get out of there. Lane was done, I was done, Dave was done. The finance guy was not done, he wanted us to buy other stuff. I was fantasizing about  reaching over his desk and choking him and that dot matrix printer that took forever to print our documents until he started reading our documents with altered pitch to entertain the baby. That was cool..we bought gap insurance...then we left with Pat....our ambiguous blue prius (Dave doesn't want her called a she, so Pat ...or maybe Leslie?...should work).

Pat is shiny and new. She has lots of buttons and gadgets. She is comfortable, she is clean and she smells like it. Dave is going to install a roof rack or trunk rack of some sort on her so that he can affix his bike or extra crap when we go on roadtrips....like this weekend. We're going to Hilton Head with friends. I will miss our Jeep (even though it rode like a wagon and smelled like Dave's workouts) like I will miss that chapter of our lives....sporatic stupid decisions, no roots, no attachments and I will move willingly into efficient, thoughful Prius Chapter - with a little bit of 'my baby is feeding the dogs her organic food so I better go get her' mixed in.