The boyfriend isn't really a fan of the blog. He hasn't said as much, but I know he rarely reads it. I believe he views it as being too negative and harsh, a valid point I suppose. He generally takes a more fatalistic view of our situation - however the hell we ended up here, we're here now and we might as well try and make the best of it.
But that may have changed over the weekend.
The boyfriend has one great passion... classic cars.
From the day I met him he's always driven an older, stylish import. He'd buy them, restore them, drive them a while, sell them and start all over again. He absolutely loved it. Mostly Mercedes and Jaguars and the like. When times were good, he also bought a '77 Corvette and '84 Cadillac, which he was lovingly restoring on the side. They're both gone now, sadly.
When things started going bad and he sold his last car, he realized that we could no longer afford the cost and unpredictability of an older car. So for the first time in his life, he leased a new one. Lost amid all the chaos of the new house, the move and my unstable career was the fact that the lease was running out.
Soon.
Like in a matter of weeks.
So over the weekend he went out car shopping.
He went out solo. He's the car authority and all I can really offer is moral support, and eight hours of that gets a little tedious. He was gone several hours and I heard him return.
"Hey, come out and look at something" he said.
Sitting in the driveway was a VW Golf. Cute, stylish, not his usual taste, but then again, we can no longer afford that. I have to say I was impressed. I couldn't help but notice it was a stick shift.
I never learned to drive a stick.
I guess I won't be driving it. Then again, perhaps that's the plan, since I'm the one who rear-ended his last car.
"It was between this and a Jetta, but I really think this is the car for me" he said. "All the same, I'd still like you to come down to the dealer and check out the other car just to get your opinion."
It was the least I could do.
Once at the dealer I checked out both cars, heard his pitch and agreed with him that, knowing him, the Golf was the way to go. I left him to haggle out the money and went home.
About an hour later, he returned home.
With the Jetta.
THAT'S why I've learned not to tag along when he shops for cars.
At any rate, he walked in the door and looked pissed. He just got a new car, what could he be pissed about?
"My car smells like a cow!" he said
Huh?
"One of the simple joys in life is buying a new car and getting to smell that 'New Car' smell for the first week or so. But my car doesn't smell like that, it smells like a cow. It has 'New Cow' smell! Fucking Bakersfield!"
I felt his pain. That's the thing about this place, it's "death by a thousand paper cuts", robbed of even the little things in life.
Later that evening we were sitting on the couch, watching TV and he turned to me, still obviously perturbed.
"You need to write about that in your blog..."
So honey, this one's for you. I love you. We'll get you an air freshener.
