I have a rather ambivalent relationship to automobiles. My dad was a shade tree mechanic par excellence. I doubt there was anything he couldn’t fix short of straightening a bent frame (though I bet he could have figured out how to do that, too) before cars became half computer.
I, on the other hand, could not have cared less about the machinery of…well, anything. The mechanic’s gene or whatever it is missed me. Dad would haul me out to the garage regularly to help him do a repair and my overwhelming sense was one of “LET ME OUT OF HERE!” Bored doesn’t cover it. He would try to explain how things worked, why they were the way they were, and for what it’s worth a good deal of it stuck. If, later, as a driver, I found myself in the middle of nowhere with a malfunctioning set of wheels, I could probably have pulled a McGyver and fixed the damn thing.
But the all-consuming love one sees in the faces of males of a certain type when they pore over their engines…uh uh.
I still don’t care that much. Oh, in a theoretical way, certainly, but the getting-the-hands-in and “tinkering” is not anywhere in my suite of anticipated pleasures.
But I do like cars. I like the way many of them look, I love driving them, I appreciate the æsthetics of them, I would not want to do without them. They are, in my book, cool things. I am a firm believer in paying a good mechanic to keep them doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
I would like one day to own a really fine high-end…something. Mercedes, Lincoln, Porsche, Lexus, whatever.
For now, though, I am a happy driver to have a new set of wheels. Given the destruction of my previous set, this was a necessity that has turned out nice. I have a new car. 2013 Corolla.
Yes, another Corolla. Our fourth. We like them.
But this one is NOT BLUE.
Observe:
Not quite a matched set, but close enough. His and Hers. Ours and Ours.
