My Summer Car
My Summer Car
I have a new car back at home. I love my car almost as much as I love my pets because I’m a Southern Californian and we love our cars inordinately.
But I’m on vacation now. For six weeks I get to idle my time in the soft and green humidity of America’s heartland, far away from the sharp frenzy of the CA’s summer beach life. And while I’m here, the buggy in the picture is my buggy.
She’s about ten years old. She has over 150 thousand miles on her. She has a rolling gait which is like being in a boat lolling about in the waves. She doesn’t go fast, so that needing to be first in line at the light (like I must be in CA) is a moot point. She doesn’t have to drive me very far anyway, so being first away from the gate is a moot point as well. Luckily her air-conditioning works. Luckily the windows do to. But unlike my new car, they don’t roll up with only a brief touch from me. I have to hold the window opener until the window is all the way open or closed. The windows open and close very slowly, too slowly as I found out the time she and I started rolling through the car wash before the windows had inched their way up to sealed shut.
She’s parked on the grass, under a tree. It’s a big tree, and provides her with much needed shade. I do have a garage here, but at the moment it’s full of tractors (small) and mowers (large), leaving no room for my old lady. The tree is huge, and in fact should be cut down before it’s blown down on top of the house…but who’s going to make that call? A large storm making a hole in the roof will be the only thing that will get that ball rolling.
I love this car. It is the anithesis of my sleek LA car. But there are two things Bessie here doesn’t have that my car at home does. Two items at which I totally sneered when I got her.
One, my new car not only has a camera showing me where I’m backing up, it has a little bell thing that goes off when I’m about to hit something. At first I was totally put off, as in, I can do this by myself! It wasn’t until I began driving my old girl here this year, that I realized how much I’ve come to rely on that alarm. In Bessie here, I actually have to crane my neck around to see where I’m going. At my age, that’s not always a wise thing.
And the other gizmo is that my car is a ‘keyless’ car. Which means all I need is to have my keys in my purse for the car to start. Pointless bit of technology, right? What’s the big deal with needing to get one’s keys out of one’s purse?
Well, here on vacation, that has become my biggest (and only) beef with wonderful Bessie. Every time I swing into the car I throw my purse over to the back seat and turn back to start the car. And every single time, with a jolt of dismay, I remember the key thing, and have to turn back around (remember the neck issue?), retrieve my purse, and begin the old-fashioned and anxiety producing hunt for my keys.
I suppose I can live with the inconveniences. Afterall, Bessie has to live with me this summer.
