Kit, I need you!

I used to drive a Ford Focus.  I hated that car.  The first night I had it, my ma and I went up the street to pick up Chinese food during an ice storm, and -- despite learning to drive in Minnesota winter weather and being pretty damn good at it by then -- slid straight through an intersection.  I should have sold it right then, but it was eleven years newer than my previous car and had new-fangled and life-saving features, such as airbags.  (As it turns out, I'd rather have ABS and all-wheel drive, and thus avoid the necessity of airbags.)

That car was a subclinical lemon -- that is, completely untrustworthy and expensive but not certifiable for replacement.  I had to replace the ignition system when it was only four years old, after the third time it stranded me.  Only once was in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming.  At nightfall.  Thank FSM for AAA.  The last time I drove it was to a friend's house to help her clean her new apartment, and I just wasn't terribly shocked, despite the lack of warning symptomology, when it failed to start.  The mechanic reported the engine had cracked.  It was five years old, had only 105K miles.  Don't ever buy the first model year.  Wait until all the wrinkles get ironed out in lawsuits funded by other people.

So I started car-shopping on craigslist.  When you're 25 and childless but fairly poor, car shopping presents some interesting options.  I was really fond of a number of classics, cars that preceded me on this earth by twenty years or more, but they seemed likely to strand me as often as that damned Focus.  I'm not much of a mechanic, and I didn't have a garage or many tools.  Additionally, my driving is conservatively described as "defensive."  I had really missed having a six-cylinder engine.

Lucy

It was my husband-to-be (though I didn't know it at the time) who found my car-to-be: a 1992 Dodge Stealth, DOHC, 222hp, manual transmission, 95K miles.  She was for sale in a fancy schmancy neighborhood in the city.  We went to take her for a spin, and appreciate her womanly hips...and the balls she displayed during acceleration.  (If that sentence strikes you as odd, you're clearly not a car person.)  The owner -- let's call him Mr. Wife Swap -- was selling her because he'd upgraded to a fancy new German car and his two kids didn't fit so well in the alleged 2+2 coupe.  (Nobody fits very well in a 2+2, by the way.)  I was fairly enthralled but terribly nervous; $5000 was a huge amount of money to me.  I told him I was interested but had some other cars to test-drive -- LIES!!! -- and would get back to him.  That night I called Mr. Wife Swap and said I'd take it, would bring him a cashier's check the next day.  I couldn't stand the thought of someone else driving off in my (aging) sports car.

When I showed up to do the transaction, he let me in the house.  It's a pretty ritzy neighborhood and I wasn't surprised by the apparent shoe-removal-at-door policy, but I was surprised by the basket of hospital booties behind the door.  I just object to the sharing of booties.  No floor needs to be so shiny that shared booties should be required.  In fact, I decline.  I will not partake of the booty-sharing.

We sat on the floor to exchange paperwork.  I think he offered me a chair but it I'm fairly comfortable on the floor and didn't mind.  I was curious, however, why the couch was apparently off-limits?  We made some small talk or something and I mentioned that I'd driven my last car out from Minnesota.  He seemed genuinely shocked that I spoke English in full sentences and wasn't morbidly obese, being from the midwest.  Without betraying any cognition that his preconceptions were at all prejudiced, he made it clear to me that he believed everyone in the midwest inbreeds, reads nothing of substance, plays no instruments, carries STDs, and generally presents a drain on society.  Umm, Mr. Wife Swap?  Have you ever been there?  I can't remember if he said he'd been through it or not?  But his experience was fleeting, anyway.  And he's not from the US, so I'm uncertain where he'd developed his well-developed opinions.  I certainly would be reluctant to opine on the regional differences of Great Britain, (just for example), seeing as I've never lived there and only visited once for a short period of time.  It'd be ignorant of me.  Especially if my opinions happened to be bigoted.

The transaction occurred uneventfully, and Mr. Wife Swap had the kindness to draw up two receipts for me, one of which documented full payment of the asking price, and the other documented the sale for the DMV, sans numbers...because the government already made sales tax off the sale of the car, the first time it was sold.  He also provided me with records of all the maintenance and repairs, which I thought was excellent of him.

The next I heard of Mr. Wife Swap, he was swapping wives on TV.  Let me state here that I don't watch the show, but I was reading an article on the internet (because I'm literate, despite my midwestern origins) about a particularly unsavory participant who had specific opinions about midwesterners and their backwardness.  Imagine my astonishment to find it was Mr. Wife Swap!  I keep meaning to watch the episode to see what an ass he made of himself, but I nearly always have better things to do than watch inflammatory reality tv, or at least I like to think so.

So just in case her "celebrity" affiliation status raises her resale value, let me conclude by vouching for the overall health and well-being of my car.  She treats this midwesterner very well, despite her first daddy's misgivings.  But it's getting to be time for me to move on, so all reasonable offers will be considered.  And you should know that she answers to the name of Lucy, just in case you ever get into trouble and need to summon her via your wristwatch.  It can totally be done -- that's also on tv.