Actually, the lease was going to be up in January, so the good folks at GM called and asked if I wanted to get out of it early. So I got a kickass deal on a newer version of my old one. I gotta say: I’m like the Marvin Hagler of haggling: the new SUV has so many whizbang features my last one didn’t, and yet I’m paying less this time around.
It possibly helped that I have an inexplicably high credit rating (847), which is like a ruphie to a car dealer. Augie didn’t know what hit him.
Still, I’m feeling more than a little sentimental about parting with the old vehicle. In just three years I logged over 53,000 miles in it, and that’s a lot of time behind the wheel. I remember looking in the rear view mirror at a very sick Petey as I drove him to the vet, and it suddenly occurring to me he was probably not coming home this time. He didn’t. Seven months later, I looked down at Ricky, the little shit just five weeks old and 4 ½ pounds, laying on his back in my friend Caroline’s lap, as we brought him home for the first time.
One or two first kisses took place inside that SUV, and many times, eight people loaded themselves inside on our way to lunch. There were my patented drives my niece and nephew begged me to take them on, in which they’d sit in the third row as I blasted music and drove recklessly, then foolishly asked them not to mention it to their mom.
But as much as the old car will be missed, there’s nothing quite like a new one. It’s the closest thing we adults get to Christmas day. And now I can create all kinds of new memories. Forget kissing – this time I’m stepping it up to dry humping. I’ll need seven volunteers.
