You know how when you were a little girl (or boy for all three of you who might be reading) and you dreamed of the day you’d turn sixteen and your parents would surprise you with a brand new Trans Am just like the one Burt Reynolds drove in Smokey and the Bandit with a sweet, sweet firebird on the hood? And then you’d try to drive from Texas to Georgia following Jerry Reed in a semi-truck while outwitting a Texas sheriff and his dimwitted son?
Oh wait. Was that just me?
If so, then I can only assume that you didn’t spend as many hours of your childhood watching Smokey and the Bandit 1, 2, and 3 as I did. (I think we can all agree that 3 was a mere shadow of the first two)
My point is that the black Trans Am was the first car I ever loved. It spoke of excitement and adventure, much unlike the 1977 Buick LeSabre with baby blue velour interior that sat in our garage.
Then one day my best friend, Caroline Fletcher, pointed out a Corvette as we sat in the back rear-facing seat of her mama’s station wagon and it pulled up behind us. I renounced my love of the Trans Am and dreamed of the day I would own a red Corvette.
(I was way ahead of Prince)
(Of course, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t singing about a car)
The summer before I turned sixteen, my dad took me shopping for a car. By that time there was really nothing I wanted more than a Suzuki Samurai. A teal Suzuki Samurai. God bless the 1987 version of me. However, my dad took it for a test drive and decided that he didn’t want to buy his teenage daughter a car that made him feel like he was “driving a tin can”. And I told him that I completely understood and admired his desire to put my safety first. Or maybe I whined and pouted. I can’t really remember.
Ultimately, I ended up with a Honda CRX that I drove until I started my first job after college and decided to embrace the American way and get myself a car payment in the form of a Nissan Maxima. A few years later, I got a job in pharmaceutical sales and drove company cars for the next ten years, including an awesome white Ford Taurus that looked just like the pills I was selling at the time. Except not as big.
And then, three years ago, I left my pharma job and they had the nerve to take away my free company car. So P and I had to find me a car TOOT SUITE which led us to a Volvo dealership where we met a salesman with a cowboy perm named JoEL. (emphasis on the EL) He sold us a used Volvo S60 sedan that has served us well and felt pretty dang sporty compared to all the Tauruses (Taurusi?) and Grand Prixs and Ford Escapes that came before it.
All of this is leading up to an email we received from the Volvo dealership late last week informing us they were looking for used S60s to add to their pre-owned inventory and they would make us a special deal if we wanted to trade it in. Granted, this may have all been part of an elaborate ruse to get us into the dealership in the midst of a truly sub-par economy, but it worked like a charm because on Tuesday morning we drove over JUST TO LOOK at what they had in stock.
And, ultimately, made a decision that would make that little eight-year-old-Trans Am-wanting girl mock me endlessly.
OH YES WE DID.
We bought a stay wag.
A 2006 stay wag with only 30,000 miles. Apparently it was owned by an elderly couple who drove it back and forth to the grocery store about three times a day and then put it back in the garage.
When we bought the S60 sedan three years ago, I assumed it was all we needed because, in case you haven’t noticed, we only have one child. As it turns out, she has made friends. And she wants to pile those friends in my car so I can drive them places because they keep getting lost every time I make them ride the city bus.
So we looked at SUVs, but kept coming back to the wagon. I heard myself tell P, “I actually really like the stay wag. It’s white, it’s a great deal, and it has a rear-facing third row like the wagons of our childhood.”
He said, “Do you really want a station wagon?”
I thought back to all those moments I spent riding in that rear-facing seat in Caroline Fletcher’s mama’s wood paneled station wagon and how we’d make funny faces at the cars behind us and drool over red Corvettes and sing Dr. Hook songs at the top of our lungs. And I thought about how I didn’t want my Caroline to be deprived of that unique childhood experience and replied, “Yes. YES I DO. I can make the station wagon cool again.”
Which, let’s be honest, is way overestimating my cool-making abilities.
But I think as long as I decide to forgo playing any Dr. Hook music, I’ll be okay.