The other day I saw a post on this website about, frankly one of the oddest insecurities I've ever heard of. A girl was asking about her cousin's new mustang and if she should be worried about the car that she drives.
Maybe I'm super philisophical, or maybe I've just been watching too much Top Gear on BBC. But yesterday I got to thinking, Is this a valid insecurity? Should we take it as a personal insult when someone insults what we drive, after all, we sort of "chose" it based on what we had to spend?
A month ago, I had a minor vehicular infraction where I was hit in a parking lot, and I had nothing to repair my bumper with temporarily, so I went back into the store, which happened to be a grocery store, and bought some black gorilla tape to repair my sagging bumper. As I was tping it up, I realized that my car is a lot like me.
I have for a few years, driven a Saab 9-3. Its vein, funky, with all types of weird quirks that only I know. The cupholder is in the dashboard, the key is in the center console, and my heart is in the drivers seat. Some parts have gone bad, things that I've put off taking care of.
My car always gets me where I need to go, but I hardly give it a second glance. I thought while standing in the parking lot as it began to rain, that rather than continue to ignore my car's needs, as soon as I got it repaired that following Wednesday, I would clean, purchase parts, get that oil change and order some logos for the trunk, (things I had promised It I would do long ago.)
I realize now, that by putting off some of the problems with my car, at a glance, I've neglected to tie up some lose ends in my own life. This is where it gets fairly personal. I share some of the odd quirks with my car, my relationships, especially the one with my father, have been strained, and in wait of a phone call. Like that oil change. I haven't spoken to him in three years, because of the way that he had treated me while I lived with him.
I thought one of these days, I'll send him a letter, or give him a call. When my mother collapsed last week of a stroke, I began to wonder if this was a metaphor for my parking lot accident. I finally had the excuse to fix all of the things that were wrong between my father and I, just like I finally had an excuse to begin to respect my car further.
But it isn't just a metaphorical symbolism in the car's issues, It's the personality too. It drives smoothly, and it knows thinks it knows how to change gears better than me, much the way I can be a bit of a pretentious know it all. The engine is fast, but not quick, much as I lack the reflexes to do much of anything atheletic besides strength training. I have to take the whole bumper off to change a lightbulb, much like in order to understand where my hesitations lie, sometimes I have to rediscover who I am.
Not many people are too familiar with Saab, much like I find that I'm more on the quiet side.
Moreover, I find it isn't just me that this shares commonalities with my car, after all I picked it. Likewise, I ave a friend who drives a Toyota Celica, and swears by it. It's a small, fun, loud, presumptuous little car, and is fitting of her personality, but much like what lies within her brain, I could never understand the quirks of her car, and the things that lie under the hood, or behind her smile.
One of my other friends, someone who I would define as a self-proclaimed sophisticate, bought a Volvo S80. It's larger, statlier, the itelligent choice in swedish car design, with similar oddities comparable to my Saab. But not the same. I find I share a lot of qualitieswith him; humor, conversation cadence, and a coffee addiction, much like our cars, which share color and country of origin, and aesthetics.
After thoroughly cleaning my car, and recieving all of the repairs, and expenses that go along with maintaining it, I called my dad, who told me he missed me for the first time in seven years.
Treat yourselves, and your cars with respect, don't hesitate until tomorrow, because we aren't all that different.
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