My Wife’s Car

After years of having my machismo tied up in possessing a vehicle, I no longer own a car. That statement is overly dramatic and not technically accurate. The lovely little Chevy Equinox in which we travel about the country does have my name on the title. But there is little doubt that it’s my Wife’s car. From the car’s perspective, this is a better arrangement. My Wife is meticulous about oil changes, washings, and minor repairs. All things she has me do to help shore up my delicate masculinity.

“Guys, do that stuff.”

Sigh.

My Wife, indeed, had everything to do with acquiring our car. When it came time to replace her vehicle, she called our eldest son to inquire about which makes and models were the best buy. Since he began reading Car and Driver magazine, cover to cover, in kindergarten, he was her go-to source. He helped her sort out two or three selections to focus her shopping at our local dealers. When she found the Equinox, she was confident, after a couple of hours of reassurance, that this was the vehicle for us. She was sure that its charcoal gray color, my favorite, would make me happy with the decision. How can you argue with that?

I have to admit, in my weaker moments, that it is a good car. It’s just that when we got it, I had never imagined that it would be our only car. When we purchased the Equinox, I owned a six-speed Volkswagen Golf TDI, my favorite car I had ever owned. The TDI, which stands for Turbo Diesel Injection, says it all. It drove like a sports car with phenomenal mileage. But when it came time to sell our house, I faced a sad reality. There was no place to park my car while we drove around the country in the Equinox. The Golf TDI had to go along with the massive flotsam and jetsam of our radical downsizing.

I take some satisfaction in the fact that liquidating my car also brought my Wife some grief. Friends and relatives convinced her that selling it on Facebook Marketplace was the best solution. She’s probably right, but our seat belts failed, and our airbags didn’t deploy as we crashed headlong into our naivete about this online service. Our first mistake was letting me set the price. Steeped in the psychic pain of the venture, I probably listed it too low. The general popularity of this vehicle and its low price rang my Wife’s phone off the hook, which was quite a feat considering that she uses a cell phone. We lost track of the number of calls at about fifty inquiries and multiple serious offers in the first couple of hours. People from hundreds of miles away called, begging us not to sell the car until they could get there to buy it.  

What a pain! The first test drive customer was tardy by an hour, making us nearly late for a dinner date with friends. Then my beautiful car didn’t start due to a weak battery. Blush! This failure probably caused that customer to talk himself out of the purchase. A decision he deeply regretted when he called back three hours later to find that we’d already sold the car. The person who bought it offered sight unseen over the phone on the way to our night out with friends. We made arrangements for him to pick it up after we got home. 

When we finally called to inform our buyer that we were home, we discovered he’d drunk too much at a poker party to drive. By this time, the car-selling process had me to the point that I volunteered to bring the car to him. So my last drive in my wonderful Golf TDI was across town to a western Sioux Falls suburb delivering it to its new owner. My Wife attempted to follow me through the dark streets to the buyer’s address. I probably should have thought about the fact that she’d had eye surgery two days before, but saying goodbye to the best car I’d ever owned drove every other thought from my mind.

When we arrived, I thought the place looked excellent, and I readily accepted the buyer’s invitation to go inside so I could sign the title and receive a wad of hundred-dollar bills. My Wife, who considers any neighborhood less spiffy than the Hamptons crime-ridden, sat in the car with a call to 911 pre-dialed into her phone. Relieving both of us, I soon emerged for the sad drive away from my beautiful black car. It’s probably an exaggeration, but it occurred to me that I could finally understand the feelings of a newly minted steer. My Wife completed this emotional state by thoughtfully asking if I had counted the money. I considered the ordeal finished even short a hundred bucks and added some salty language to close out the debate.

Since that night, my Wife’s car has been our only vehicle. Most of the time, this works pretty well. However, there are times of internal tension for me. Often this is caused by the difference in our ideas of what constitutes a passable roadway. This point of contention is particularly acute when I take the car out hunting and fishing. I’ve known for years that as long as you don’t slide sideways, putting one set of wheels up on the outer edge of a muddy road makes it perfectly navigable. We maintain our domestic bliss by having me hunt and fish without her. Like Vegas, what happens in the marsh stays in the marsh.

So for over a year now, I have consoled myself with the notion that we are better off with one car. I’m learning to adapt to my Wife’s concern that regularly changing the oil is in the vehicle’s best interest and that leaving on that excellent coating of road grime is not. I even think practically about how to position my hunting and fishing gear, so there is room for frivolities like groceries. But now that we have moved into our condo, we have two parking places in the garage. Count them. One, Two, Aaaargh! No medieval torturer ever thought of such an ingenious way to harvest pain. We park My Wife’s car in one of the spaces and park nothing in the other. Nothing.

But a new day is dawning as hope springs eternal. A car is not the only vehicle a guy can own to put in a parking space. An excellent little hunting and fishing boat on a light trailer featuring a spunky little outboard motor could occupy that space just as well as a car. And coincidentally, my Wife’s car is outfitted with a trailer hitch. It could be a match made in heaven. Possibly I’m finally reconciled to our only automobile being my Wife’s car. I even bought a Haynes Repair Manual for it. What else could that mean? Now, how do you spell jon boat?