Car Shopping

(Disclaimer first:  I did write this post when the situation was current,  I just forgot to post it.  Oops!)

Let me give you a summary of my experience growing up with my father and cars.  My father is a wonderful man.  He is a genius.  He loves oil refineries.  He will do almost anything for a chocolate shake, and he's a huge sports fan. However, spendy, extravagant, and luxurious do not describe my father.  He buys cheap cars, and he loves them because they are cheap.  If I were ever to have been allowed a request for the next model, it would have been something like this:  "Can this one have AC?"  "Does the radio happen to work in this one?"  "What color is that exactly?"  "Less than 200,000 miles maybe?"  Air-conditioned seats, remote starters and back-up sensors were not even in the remotest part of the imagination.  Let's be honest, power steering would have been a novelty.  So when Trav said, "What do you want?"  I said, "Huh?" 

I complained about all of the many cars growing up.  However, I have come to realize that throughout the history of my father's automobile purchases, which are many, I have learned several things I could have never known other wise.  I know what a broken radiator smells like, versus a broken fan belt.  I know that there is such a thing as MPQ (miles per quarts of oil).  I know it is possible to have frost on the inside of your windshield.  I have experience both towing an automobile and driving the vehicle being towed, as well as pushing a car all by myself.  I have seen my mother hot-wire a car, jump-start a car, and push start a car.  I know that a glass-top muffler means you can't sneak in if you miss your curfew.  And I can honestly say that I truly appreciate that little latch that keeps the glove box closed.

Now I do know that we don't absolutely need a second car, but Trav wants me to have something for when he is gone and he wants it safe.  He wants me to be completely spoiled and have many things that I have never even had the opportunity to have before, and I appreciate that about him.  So after a few weeks of test drives, thinking, looking, thinking, test driving, and more thinking, I will have a car when Trav goes out of town, and let me tell you.  I will be safe.  It's a 2007 silvery-green Lincoln Navigator.  I've already tested it, and yes, I can sleep in it!