{"id":1450,"date":"2006-01-25T06:28:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-25T06:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/01\/my-car-myself\/"},"modified":"2020-01-03T07:35:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T12:35:47","slug":"my-car-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/my-car-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"My Car, Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"

As much as I hate to admit it, I am letting the car I drive define me. I was raised not to be a shallow person, but I have struggled mightily against my own deep inner shallowness for my whole life. And now, as Ned and I are at an impasse over what car to get, I feel that part of myself rising up and taking hold. I have chosen to get a vacuum for my car from this list of vacuums<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Currently I drive a 2003 Volvo V70 wagon, which a very good, and very libertarian friend<\/a> calls “The quintessential Liberal car.” Yes, I am definitely “Liberal.” or “Progressive;” “Dyed-in-the-Wool-Democrat;” but that has nothing to do with what I drive and everything to do with how I vote, which is another blog entry altogether. The reason I drive that car is because I think it is very pretty. It is black and beautifully shaped. It looks and feels like a luxury car, yet I can (sort of, with just the right Lexus early lease return<\/a> package) afford it. It looks as good driving up to a gala as it does driving up to the school for pick-up. Basically, it is like the perfect shoe: goes with most things I wear, very stylish, and comfortable enough. I have named it “The Party Slipper.” She is just like a party shoe, like a perfect black pump with a 2″ heel. She is about that good in snow, too, by the way. She can run, sure, but because she is so impractical, she slips (skids) a little. But she is very good at communicating, and so every time she skids, she is courteous enough to light up with a little “I’m skidding” symbol, a yellow triangle with a zig-zag line that flashes at me as I glide over black ice.<\/p>\n

My big sons are outgrowing the buttery soft taupe leather backseat, and the lease is just about up, so we are now shopping around for a bigger (sigh) car. I want to get the Volvo SUV (the XC90).<\/a> Ned wants to save some money this time around, so he is pushing for the Honda Pilot.<\/a> They are about the same size, but the price per month for a lease is about $200 different. Look, I love Hondas. I come from a totally Honda-driving family. Hondas are what I was raised to drive.<\/p>\n

Maybe that has something to do with it.<\/p>\n

I am in midlife crisis mode, and for me that manifests as a bit of a rebellion from how I was raised — only in the most shallow ways, of course; I love my parents and think they are fantastic people, with their heads mostly screwed on right. But I am who I am, and though my head is mostly screwed on right, I have a bit of a screw loose when it comes to spending money. And what could be more ridiculous than insisting on a more expensive car simply because I can’t bear to drive something whose claim to fame is basically that it is “dependable?” When I look at those Pilots, I don’t see and think about how cheap their reasonable repair bills are or how easy it is to find parts; I see a big, fat hiking boot. A crepe-soled, heavy-toed LL Bean. I see a shoe I would never<\/span> wear. I see a car with a big fat ass, dragging itself all over town. Though I thoroughly checked it out, good little wife that I am, no amount of extras or pimping will make that car into a dress boot, like the XC90. The only way is to visit car wreckers<\/a> and trade it for a new one along with selling unwanted Corolla parts<\/a>. Learn more about metal removal service<\/a> and check how you can get rid of your car junk on the website of Scrap Metal Pickup, and how you can get you\u00a0unwanted car<\/a> removed.<\/p>\n

Ah, the XC90. It is like the glamorous big-sister version of my V70. It goes with everything, like my BCBG black suede pointy-toed cowboy boots with 1 1\/2″ heel. It has a similar ass to the V70, shapely and pushed up high, and not disproportionately big up front. It comes in all the beautiful colors, like Restoration Hardware green, or creamy white, or the perfect black. It will go with my sage-green house. It will go with my life — or at least the life I wish I had, where I could afford such a car.<\/p>\n

Ned thought he was marrying a low-maintenance woman. But, as Humphrey Bogart once said, “He was misinformed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As much as I hate to admit it, I am letting the car I drive define me. I was raised not to be a shallow person, but I have struggled mightily against my own deep inner shallowness for my whole life. And now, as Ned and I are at an impasse over what car to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-no","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1450"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5607,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions\/5607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}