A friend just got a new car. A NEW new car, not just a car that is new to her. The last vehicle she owned was a late model Chevy Cavalier with an engine that just did quit. So she went car shopping and came up with a fresh model Toyota. She was thrilled to have a car that smelled new, rather than a used (or what the industry calls “pre-owned”) one that needed a few doses of heavy duty concentrated scent in a can to make it inoffensive to the nose.
I got a new car awhile ago, so it was fun to watch her in the thralls of newbie-itis. She popped the trunk for the first time, used the passenger side power window for the first time (I did that, to her amazement), and made her first in-dash phone call to me. I was honored. Like I did before her, she had her first car with a power remote lock, though she beat me to getting a car with a CD player by years.
She showed me the instrument panel, the details in the trim (what the industry now calls “appointments”) and how quiet the drive is. We parked at the mall out in no-man’s land to prolong the wait for that inevitable first ding. I did that, too, for seven months: I parked at the edge of the lot and walked for a full extra minute to get to work, but it did nothing for my waistline.
The trunk was devoid of any clutter, which I know lasts until the first bad weather or big shopping trip comes along. Bad weather brings out a collection of about a dozen umbrellas, none of which gets used because they are in the trunk where nobody can reach them without getting out of the car and getting wet in the process of retrieving them. In the winter there will be a scraper and brush which won’t be accessible at the first snow because the trunk will be iced shut. In the front of the car, the cup holders will be laced with coffee stains soon, and the floor mats will contain outdoor debris and, in my case, lots of shedding hair. The seats of most woven fabric interior cars tend to pull on hair, and I lose a few every week in my vehicle (I’m blond, so they show), so I know that my friends have seats and floors with hair in them as well. Those with dogs end up with dog hair, too.
My friend is still getting comfortable with the mechanics and logistics of the new car. Figuring out how far to pull forward in a parking spot is a challenge for a few days, as is backing up. The car did not come with bells and whistles like a back-up camera. A co-worker has one of those, and he smiles everytime he backs up his car. I just use the rear view mirror and go very slowly.
My car isn’t old by any means, but new cars bring out that feeling of nostalgia about the jalopies we used to drive and the next one we plan to get. But not until the engine quits, at least for now.
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