But the new car smell is merely a nice side benefit. What my
spouse really loves isn't actually acquiring the car; it's the thrill of the hunt. Like Captain Ahab, whose quest for the Great White Whale totally consumed him and all around him, he is a man possessed. He spends his time
searching for the Great White (or Blue or Red or Black) Car. Unfortunately, he can't be single-minded and fanatical all by himself. Nope, he likes to bring me into the mix. And I hate it.
The last time we bought a new car
(new to us, that is) my husband dragged me through every car lot within 100 miles. And when I wasn't walking though car lots, I was riding through them.
Car lots aren't really that big. But he could spend as much as
30 minutes cruising around just one of them. Always up for a challenge, my mate has no problem skimming through the rows of parked cars at a blazing speed of two miles per hour, all the while urging me to lean out and read stickers
to him as we pass. It is, without saying, my number one choice of the way to spend a free afternoon. But if I don't want to dedicate large hunks of my time repeating that performance, I have to be very careful. Almost any remark
can set him off.
A few years back when I casually mentioned I hated the truck he drove, he decided he wanted to sell it and buy something else. Not too long after that we had the rare opportunity to drop off our children at
a social event where we could leave and pick them up a couple of hours later. This was a rare luxury and I was excited about getting to spend an evening alone with my husband in a social setting. What would we do? Go out to dinner?
Take in a movie? Go for a walk? Not once did the option of roaming aimlessly through a parking lot occur to me. But that, of course, is what we ended up doing. And we spent our nearly two hour window of opportunity trying to see
the mileage on the used cars through the window (pretty darn tough, I might add, but since my husband has a lot of foresight, he brought along a flashlight to make our task a little easier).
Yes, romantic devil that he is,
we lovingly compared sticker prices, affectionately looked at options, tenderly weighed the advantages of buying new versus used and fondly traipsed around car lots until it was time to pick up the kids. It was an evening I would
never forget.
And, single-minded individual that he is, he would never let me forget it, because every day until he found the one perfect vehicle, that Great White Whale of a Car, he brought a new and different one home
from the lot for me to drive. Then he would make me quit whatever I was doing (minor stuff like helping the kids with their homework, fixing dinner, applying a tourniquet) and drive it so he could take it back and bring home
another one. After this had gone on for several weeks, I finally said, "This one, I like this one! It's perfect! I insist you buy it!" And he did. To tell the absolute truth, I didn't even know what it was until he drove it home,
flushed and triumphant from the car dealership. And I really didn't care, either.
I just wanted to kill that blasted whale once and for all so I could have a life again.
