New Wheels

Good Lord…I’m experiencing one of those times when I’m so tired I can’t sleep. Husband and I decided tonight would be the night to jump back on the water aerobics bandwagon. I haven’t been to the pool in almost a year. I’m here to tell you that, at my age, you don’t just drop an exercise program for eleven months, and try to pick it up again exactly where you left off. I will be lucky if I can hoist myself out of bed at all in the morning. Which I am being called upon to do at 5:00 am tomorrow, as I am slated to drive husband to work, so that I can pick him up from work, so that we can then drive up the gorge and pick up our new (to us) means of transportation.

Oh, boy, a new vehicle! I’d be lying if I said that my dream car is NOT a BMW Z4. Or at the very least, a classic 1955 T-bird…the one with the spare tire stuck on the back of the trunk. The ecology-conscious side of me covets a Toyota Prius. So, what is my "new" ride going to be? A Dodge Ram 3500 dually, with a big, herkin’, noisy diesel engine. Not exactly the car of my dreams…

Before you go getting all green-house gassed at me, let me just remind you that my chosen livelihood demands that I tow a 10,000 lb. trailer up and down the highways and byways of northwest Oregon. Which I have been doing with a one-ton van with a gasoline engine; getting, if I’m lucky, five miles to the gallon. Eleven at the most without the trailer. This sadly plain-looking pick-up truck we are purchasing (it’s white, for God’s sake L ) will get double the gas mileage empty, and at least triple the mileage—18 mpg—towing the trailer. So this is one of those times when the purchase of something that appears to be a gas-guzzling monster, is really the ecologically (and economically, with the price of gas swiftly approaching the per-ounce price of gold) responsible choice.

So, tomorrow evening I will be rumbling home in my new pick-up with the engine that is loud enough….well, I was going to say loud enough to wake the dead, but since my neighbors ARE dead, I won’t go there. No naked lady mud flaps or pissing Calvins for this beast, though. I will make it a point to find two or three examples of vehicular poetry comparable to the "I’m Straight But Not Narrow" and "Regime Change Begins At Home" stickers I have on the van. It amuses me to personalize my ride into cognitive dissonance on wheels. Cruisin’ down the freeway with my liberal bumper stickers and Secret Garden reverberating from my killer sound system… This jalopy just begs to be called "The Hot Flash," doesn’t it?