The Loaner

 

My Guy needed my car for a lone day trip, since we thought it would be nice if he actually got to where he was going. His car, which we leave here in Florida, used to be my car.

It was very fancy in its day, which was before we bought it, used. So fancy, it even had these inexplicable paddle sort of devices in back of the steering wheel. (Weird. I took the time to look them up, and apparently they “allow you to override the automatic transmission for spirited driving.” ) Needless to say, I never used them.

 Still, I drove it to work for umpteen years and felt pretty darn fancy myself. It now has over 150,000 miles on it, the driver’s left rear mirror has palsy, the leather is cracking, the passenger seat can no longer be adjusted,  and the front passenger’s window can only be operated by said passenger.

It actually has a good life here. It’s only used for four months of the year, waiting for us in its garage for the other eight, and mostly only is driven to pick up a paper every morning or transport himself out for the occasional haircut.

But when I got behind the wheel the other day it felt like unchartered territory. The hood before me looked at least 20 feet long. The view out the back window seemed constricted. We recently had it checked out for something else so everything should be in order, but the brakes feel squishy to me and steering this behemoth gave my arms such a workout it had me wondering if the fluid was low. I hadn’t realized before what a manly car it is.

I was very happy to get my little Honda back again.