Good Advice

Marc Velazquez is looking out for me--and points us all to William McGurn's article in today's OpinionJournal about the liberated joy of owning a vehicle that no one else would be caught dead in.

[...] These are not the cars in the TV commercials featuring drivers gliding through deserts, mountain roads and even urban jungles cocooned in their little bubbles of luxury, not infrequently soothed by strains of Mozart emanating from a stunning sound system. Such ads are selling purity and perfection. But those of us who drive vehicles that have long ago surrendered their virginity and endured their dings and dents have our own satisfaction: the almost Franciscan liberation that comes from owning something of little or no monetary value.

What a wanton sense of freedom this evokes. Amid parking lots of Volvos and BMWs, with their little red security lights flickering on their dashboards, my car sits unlocked and unmolested. At supermarkets it rests completely indifferent to the threat of errant shopping carts. While others suck in their breath when they hand over their keys to some 17-year-old garage attendant, I remain unperturbed. And on those days when I must drive in Manhattan, I drive with something better than Fahrvergnugen: the security of knowing the minor fender bender can do me no real harm. [...]

Yep, it sounds like he's got it just about right. (Although I will say that I always lock Franklin when we go to the store--I don't want anyone to steal my calculator or my pen or my tire gauge or my fire extinguisher or my MagLite or my road flares.)

This weekend begins the painful elimination process (and no, I'm not talking about the kind you need Correctol for). I have to dig out the title papers and get all my junk and stuff out. I think I might call the guy I bought it from. He lives just up the road from me, and his son was sort of hoping I wouldn't buy it so he could have it to fix back up. If that doesn't work, there's always the row of cars with 'for sale' signs in the parking lot of the grocery store. In case you haven't figured it out, I am loathe to pay actual money to put an ad in the paper, but it may come to that.

posted by Terry at 10:41:00 AM