Possessed by a car

I bought a new vehicle a while back; well, it was new to me.

It is the lowest-mileage vehicle I have ever owned and I am enjoying it quite a bit.

When you buy a new car, you go through a period where you have all these concerns you did not have with the old clunker.

My last car had about a bazillion kilometres on it, and it showed. It smoked more than a reggae band and leaked more oil than a Husky pipeline.

The struts were shot; it was like riding an old chuck wagon and every bump nearly knocked the fillings out of my teeth.

It rattled, it clunked, it was loud and tired, so the time had come to abandon the trusty metal steed for a new stallion.

The old car owed me nothing. I put a lot of kilometres on it and had to do very little in the way of repairs. All right, I should have replaced the struts, but they were expensive and I didn't want to.

The nicest thing about owning an old, high-mileage car is you didn't really care if it got dirty, or scratched, or banged up.

The Missus and I even took it about 20 kilometres up a logging road scouting campsites (a fun adventure with marginally functioning suspension).

It came back covered in grime, dust and a little worse for wear, but by that point, it really didn't matter.

The car has seen better days and when a spectacular deal on a much newer car with a fraction of the kilometres came along, I jumped at the opportunity to upgrade in a big way.

The first few days, I would just sit in it and check out the interior and the all the new-fangled controls.

Once in a while ,I would look out the front window of my house to check out its profile before looking for an excuse – any excuse - to drive it.

While I was willing to go boonie-bashing in the old car, I was hesitant to even drive this one across an unpaved parking lot lest a rock fly up and chip the pristine paint job.

I don't even like to park the new set of wheels under a tree because there are evil, evil birds just waiting to poop on a shiny, red car.

“Wait, what's that? Dust! There is a thin layer of dust on my new car. Oh, the horror, I must wash it – a lot.”

I know that might be a little over the top, but it is always an event to get a new car and I wanted to enjoy the feeling of having a new vehicle as much as possible.

And why not, I paid a lot of money to have that feeling and I want to enjoy it for as long as I can and as much as I can.

I had the same feeling with the last car I bought – although this one is much nicer with more options. I know the feeling fades, but for the next little while, I will still get a thrill every time I look out the window and see it  on the street with cars going by — kicking up dust —and those evil birds, just waiting....

Excuse me, I have to go wash my new car. I have not done it for almost two days.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.