A couple of years ago, I wrote a post entitled Boy Rides, in which I waxed poetic on the subject of male automobile fervor versus female ambivalence. Women, I wrote, only care about cars as a way of getting from here to there, a transport system for Costco runs, and sucking in fresh spring air through an open sunroof. The only new car I ever owned was purchased in 2006 at a Nissan dealer while Husband was shopping for a new vehicle. I hopped into a Sentra while he test drove a Maxima, and we both walked out with fresh paperwork on shiny new automobiles. Husband has since had an Acura after the Maxima, but I keep cars for life. Just ask my kids, both of whom survived a mortified adolescence being driven around in my vintage Volvo 240D that sounded like a Boeing aircraft. Probably the same gas mileage, too.
For all my Everywoman pontificating, I have always harbored a tiny puddle of envy for MINI Cooper owners. I would spot them at traffic lights, all cuddled up inside their sporty MINI, playing with their Disneyesque dashboard controls and looking all Eurotrashy splendid. My foreign cars always came from Japan or Sweden, never the homeland of Bond, James Bond. And with the exception of my first used car at 16, a 1963 bronze Chevy Nova with a white hardtop, I’ve never felt an emotional attachment to a chunk of metal.
So it came to pass that the Sentra required new brakes, the steering mechanism began to squeak, and the fuel pump started farting. Husband shook his head each time I coaxed life out of my pampered buggy, and sped off down the driveway (our new garage door stands as testament to my speeding up the driveway as well). Finally he asked me one day a couple of weeks ago why I don’t just get a new car. Before I even thought about it, I blurted out, “I want a MINI.”
“You do?” he asked, surprised. He knew I always looked at them on the road with the same expression I reserve for babies and puppies, but this was the first time I’d said so out loud. “Why don’t you go test drive one to see how it feels?” he suggested, sweetheart that he is. So I did.
The MINI must be a BMW salesman’s easiest sale, being the most reasonably priced thing on their lot, and by far the cutest. I went up to the receptionist and said I’d like to speak to someone about a MINI, and right away the seasoned older white salesmen looked up at the ceiling like it might rain right inside the building, that’s how much they didn’t want to deal with a single woman asking about a MINI. The young black guy stepped forward, introduced himself, and asked if there was a particular color I’ve been dreaming about. I wanted to tell him right there, “Too bad for your prejudiced co-workers because I’m buying one of these cars.” I picked it up yesterday, and you know who I feel like in it? Bond, Mrs. James Bond.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos offer a brief Spring Tour of the city
identity theft
doggie bunk bed
creepy
grand street park