Monday, September 06, 2010

the currency of humanity

Ed tells me -- it's the poetry of being alive!

Buying and selling cars in America. He tells my daughters --  I guarantee that before it's all over, you, along with nearly every person in this country will have had a car.

So, no leaks? -- I ask, watching something drip from the exhaust pipe. Water, Ed whispers. That’s just water. He is concentrating on the front end. Why doesn’t the hood fit?
The young owner explains -- Well, when the wild turkey landed on the hood...

Earlier, on another call about another car:
I bought this car because my favorite one wasn’t working. So, until I could fix it, I needed something to drive. But now it’s fixed, so I’m selling this one.


We drive out to see one such story – the one that once sported turkeys on its hood. A kid, really just a kid in Lodi (twenty miles north of here), jumping around junk yards looking for spare parts. And now he's done with it all. Moving on. Wants the cash. Ed mutters – you didn’t mention the broken windshield and the loose headlight.

Do you like it? Ed asks this as we take it out for a spin.

The thing is, I don’t. It feels like a car that has hit many animals in its short twenty year life and is being held together with rubber bands.

In the last five years I’ve hardly needed a car. Bikes, buses, closeby markets – they freed me from the madness of constant driving. But, life puts you in different palces at different times and now I anticipate that I will have to occasionally drive. Especially once I sell the condo and move away from the bus routes.

Car shopping has been, as I have already said, hugely depressing. Most people are slobbish inside their cars – even more so than inside their homes. And the rust... and the spills, and dents...

It feels, sometimes, as if it’s impossible these days to buy a decent car for under $1000.

But I keep trying.


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We speed this way and that, across the countryside and beyond, with the eternal hope of the perfect little nothing. For under $1000.



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2 comments:

  1. Did you really mean $1,000? Not $10,000?
    If you truly are rarely going to use the car, then it might be worth considering this alternative: http://www.communitycar.com/
    I see they serve your community. My daughter uses PhillyCarShare in Philadelphia, which is similar, and is very pleased with it. You get to drive a nice clean modern car and only pay when you need it. No insurance, repairs, etc. And $900 would buy an awful lot of drive time. Might be worth looking into.

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  2. I did mean $1000. And I did consider the community car option, but I think I need more time with car than that. In past years I hardly drove at all. These days I have a daughter at the other end of town and a possible move for myself off the bus line circuit. So, time to get wheels. But I may go up to $2000!

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