Tuesday, February 19, 2008

At The Gas Station

Maybe it's because my new car* gets more than the 10 miles to the gallon my old car did and I don't have to fret quite as much, but I've had some interesting experiences at the gas station lately:

I saw a man in my former dream car, a beautiful new Audi. He was very well-dressed, in a suit and wool coat, with a magenta scarf. Before my car-shopping experience I might have thought, "What a nice car, he must be rich." Now I was thinking, "He'd be a lot richer without that huge car payment!"

In six months of shopping, I scaled down from Fantasy (Audi Quattro)>(Audi Regular) to Dream (2008 Volkswagen Passat)>(2006 Volvo) to Realistic (2007 Ford)>(2005 Ford with a decent down payment saved up.) And it's wonderful.

I thought there was a point. Oh yes. We are where we need to be. (It's good to be where you're needed.)

When I went in to pay, and to get some bananas, because we like bananas, a lady with a small child pointed to the newspaper and said "Look, a man went onto a college and shot people. What a goofball!" The little boy said "Goofball!"

Huh.

And it made me think why do children need to know this? And why does my son know that weapons are barred from college campuses like he showed in his joke the other day? Aside from the weather, why do we even watch the morning news? It's kind of doom and gloom and even sometimes far-fetched.

Oh, well. Enough! I really like "Arthur".

*Strangely, I've been seeing the exact same car everywhere.

2 comments:

sgreerpitt said...

"We are where we need to be."
Love it.

9 years ago, my old car was rusting away under my feet (after 17 years). I didn't have a lot of money, and I ended up with a little Chevy Metro, 3 cyl. car. I'd always had small cars, and was used to manual transmission so I didn't really mind. People made fun of my little put-put. Then 2005 came along, and suddenly almost every time I go to get gas (which is a LOT less often than everyone else) people want to know what kind of mileage I get (50 mpg) and if I know where they can get one too (sorry,no longer in production). Suddenly I had a desirable car, not one to snicker at.
Sue

Qaro said...

Cool! Plus you got that 50 mpg all along!

Uh, my car is a Ford Freestyle. A crossover between an SUV and a wagon. So far, I get 15-20 mpg.