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A Dream Deferred


My first car was a lightly used silver Scion XA that I absolutely loved. I happily drove Bobby for ten years and he never gave me any trouble and always got me where I needed to go safely. Knowing that someday he would need to be replaced, I kept half an eye on vehicles and settled on a bright green Scion IM as my preferred next vehicle.

But you can't fit three carseats in the back of an IM or an XA, so four years ago Bobby went to live with a professional cleaner who needed a reliable car with good gas mileage and a back hatch that didn't require propping open with a broom handle and I ended up with a van. Morrison was exactly what we needed and the kids loved him, but I did not particularly enjoy driving (or parking) something so big.

Deciding that we didn't need two gas guzzling vehicles and in preparation for a job that was an hour drive away, my partner traded in his big pick up truck... for a Corolla Hatchback, which is what IMs became when Toyota absorbed Scion five years ago. In bright green. I was a bit salty that he got "my" car and I had a bus to drive, but I did get to use it for weekend errands.

Last summer while he was out of town for work, Morrison started making a concerning sound. Adam had carpooled to his destination and his car was at his office, so I went to just see if I could pack us all into it. I could. And when he got back and replaced the van brakes (the source of the noise) we never traded back.

Since the kids and I could just fit in the car but not all five of us, we decided it would make the most sense to replace the van with something smaller than it but big enough to be comfortable, so Morrison was recently replaced with Ar-Too the Outback.

As soon as it came in, I trotted outside with a scrub brush and a cup of soapy water and scraped off the stickers he'd put on the car window and put some of my own on, and replaced the Arkansas Razorbacks front plate with a more appropriate one. It's just like a used version of the car I wanted ten years ago, and this way I know it's had all its oil changes and things. He was renamed Elton (to follow my convention of naming vehicles after singers: Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Elton John) and our first proper adventure was driving through a blizzard to an art night event.

I've got some travel plans for this summer that will be much more enjoyable in a vehicle half the size, with half the miles and twice the mpg, so I'm looking forward to future adventures!

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