Under Pressure

I made a promise to myself awhile back that when I moved to California I wouldn't let all the fancy cars and the remarks of others convince me to dump Mable and buy something newer and nicer. I made a promise to myself that I would keep my car until it's not worth fixing. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't have another $300 car payment.

Folks, this past week, I was very close to breaking that promise. I was pretty convinced that I wanted to throw caution to the wind and go buy a fun in the sun type of vehicle -- something that I could really enjoy this summer. Also, something that would be under warranty and not stick me with any outrageous repair bills.

I was planning on test driving a 2008 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon/Sahara/X this weekend. I was planning on, if the dealer would give me the price I wanted, signing a lease for that thing before the end of the month.

Well, I've been stopped in my tracks. A voice of reason by the name of Don reminded me of my promises. He made me realize that there's no need to replace Mable right now. Sure, her coolant tank was bone dry yesterday, by no fault of her own, and sure, her tires don't hold air like they should, and yeah, the muffler is starting to act up a little, and yes, when it's 100 degrees out the a/c has a hard time keeping up, but these are all minor things.

After I had her coolant topped off and washed her clean yesterday, it's like driving a car that just had the middle-aged woman equivalent of getting a Botox injection. She's not hesitating off the line, she's shifting from first to second better and just seems to be running smoother. All because of the coolant. Oops.

Anyways, I'm a little over 6,000 miles away from the 300,000 mile mark, and I fully intend on making it. At this point, the only foreseeable thing I'll need is some brake work, but that's no big deal.

It's tough at times to not get excited about the idea of a new car. I was entertaining choosing among the following cars this week:

Jeep Wrangler
Mini Cooper
Honda Civic
Chevy Malibu
Volkswagen Jetta and a
Nissan Altima

The latter two, I was informed, are chick cars that I wouldn't live down.

I kept thinking how awesome it would be to tool around SoCal with the top down on a Jeep. So much more fun to drive than a convertible, too. But alas, Jeeps are not made to be an every day drive on the freeway type of vehicle. It's noisy as heck in the cabin, overpriced, and unreliable. Oh, and 15 MPG. So what gives? I would lease it for two years, have some fun with it, and get a sensible family car just in time to settle down, accepting the fact that I won't have another fun car until my mid-life crisis.

The more I thought about it, I was intended on buying a car not for myself, but for everyone else. Everyone who says I have all this disposable income and owe it to myself to get a nice car. Well, to those people, you're in debt. You have your nice cars and your $300-400 payment every month, I'll take $0 per month and put that money towards paying off that Visa so that one day, all the credit cards payments I'm making will be non-existent and that $300 car payment will be cake.

Okay, I'm over it.