Woody & My IBF

Woodie is taunting me. Can't work on him in garage. He barely fits in and the light sucks. So, get him out. Big new battery working beautifully. Starts in one shot. I can't figure the damn thing out. Hoping to have had someone look at him, but know he doesn't need looking. Making a liar out of me. Starts. Doesn't Start. Would. Wouldn't.

My dearest 1996 BMW 735i finally gave up the ghost. I am not a tiny girl. I am not big, but I am 51. Not easy to find gym shorts that are modest but cute, big enough for my things but no Hammer pants. Stay with me here, you'll see where this is going in a minute. I am no 18-year old basketball player. Anyhow, when you find a pair of gym shorts that work, you just want to wear those. Like your blankie. At the not-so-subtle hint of Ron the Hun, I have gone from two to three days a week in excruciating pain with him. I have two pairs of gym shorts. I refuse to do laundry more than once a week. So, the need for more shorts. And not just any shorts. I want my Lululemon Groovy shorts. The black ones are they (except not on me). They have a little zipper pocket in the middle of the back waistband which hold my locker key. I need a locker key because I have used my personal force field to jam three combination locks. They have has to be cut off with a giant bolt cutter. I had asked the guy at Loews for the very strongest one they had. Well they were indeed strong and the bolt cutters wouldn't work, even wielded by the ridiculously ripped, but steroid-free, uber-trainer (she is very nice, by the way). So they had to call in a guy. That means the ladies can't change because there is a boy in the room. The third time this happened, I almost had to buy smoothies with the protein in it for all the girls while they waited. All except for the asian girls who manage to get from their swimsuits into clothes without getting naked. I don't know how they do it. As it turns out, Lululemon does not make Groovy shorts anymore. They make something like The Really Short Short or The Way Too Tight Short. Only they have better names. I do not want these red ones so I needed to actually try some on to see if any of them are a maximum of R-rated.

Having dropped off the fucking restore disks that Toshiba will not send to schools (why not?) to my kid an hour and a half away, I decided to have a nice little lunch at Neiman Marcus. I have a coupon to the Zodiac restaurant on the third floor because the lady in china told me I was out of my mind to mix the Hermes orange soup bowls with my blue Tiffany limoges (I got it in the divorce) and I complained to the manager. I am the customer, and I am right. I also really am right. They look splendid together, and I bought the soup bowls at the Hermes store, cheating Neiman Marcus of multiple thousands of dollars (but I didn't get the points, but these points programs are getting worse and worse and you get free alterations at the million point level or something like that). I am not usually a name whore, but when it comes to fine china, I am very particular. Neiman Marcus was having a pink-cancer event between the Etro (which I love) and the Prada (in which, although I am a trim size 6, I will never fit). There was lots of clapping, silent auctions and goody bags. I wondered if anyone would actually be working in the Zodiac. Turns out there is a new server there, aside from the strange-older-seems-like-he's-still-looking-for-a-traveling-Broadway-show guy that I always get. The new guy is cute and about 28. When I paid my bill, he asked me if I ever wanted any company... Wow! Maybe that older woman porn is working again. Note to self: keep ridiculously expensive lingerie. Better note to self: fire almost-real imaginary boyfriend. This one is cuter and younger.

Bolstered my my now unmistakable allure,  I decided to go to the Lululemon store bout a jillion miles from me. Hoped to see if there were any orphan Groovys. There were! But only with a weird white and grey waistband. As I don't wear one of those bras with the racer back and nothing else on top, I didn't even care. Tried some other kind on and it was kinda okay, but no zipper pocket. Panicking that they would stop making those too, I bought 4 pairs. Hope they fit. Ron the Hun will have to hold my key. So, where I'm going with this is that I as I pulled out of Lululemon, my dearest old sedan started shaking like mad. This has happened before, and it means cylinders, and it means expensive. Seeing that I only paid $15,000 for the car five years ago, it clearly is not worth putting another dime into it. Called my woody mechanic who used to work on BMWs and fixed the last cylinder problem for under a thousand dollars (and that was a major bargain), and in a fit of pique and dispair, gave him the car. On the spot. He could have it. He liked it when he worked on it before, so it was his lucky day (except for the cylinders which he could fix). And now I have no sedan. This is a problem because I bought the car to haul my kid back and forth from boarding school with his stinky ice hockey goalies stuff and it had a huge trunk, and now he is going to college. I am about to be an empty nester and I am sad (even though he really flew the coop four years ago). I am happy to drive my truck full-time, but what if my best friend needs a loaner from me while she gets her almost equally as old Mercedes fixed? She has a lot more tolerance for service visits than I do. So, I did what any self-respecting man would do. I went car shopping. Even more fun than lingerie shopping.

You ever have a panic attack? Me neither. Until today. I think it was the whole kid leaving thing. I absolutely could not breathe. But I soldiered on. Exhausted, and with a major jones for cars. I would test drive them all. And I did.

All the luxury car dealers five towns over are in the same general area. I could drive up one side of the highway and down the other and catch 'em all. Except I missed them by ten or so miles. At least it wasn't like the time I missed my exit by 150 miles in Kentucky. Made a u-turn and started in reverse order. First stop, Otto's BMW. Let me preface this by saying I do not buy new cars. Ever. It's like driving off the lot and throwing thousand dollar bills out the window. I am in a pickle, however, if the new models are the first in a "generation." I learned that term looking on eBay. You want to get one early in the generation because they will be pretty much the same for five years or so. Unfortunately, I really want a good tech package (I cannot park, I cannot see, and I cannot dial the telephone without assistance). You can only get these in the newest generation. So I am weighing getting a whole lot less technology with paying an extra $30,000 or so. In this whole process I have to get all the letters and numbers right to ask intelligent questions, and I have not done my homework. The best I could do is walk in and tell the guy that my 735 finally died on me and I needed to buy and new one and he would have to explain all the letters and numbers to me. My guy is Justice. Cool name. I told Justice that I did not want one of those long wheel base L cars. Justice told me that my old car is the size of the 5-series now. The 7-series are a minimum of 17 feet long. Yikes. As I said, I cannot park by myself (unless I am in Woody- there appears to be some kind of miracle thing going on there, maybe karmic payback for never starting). I cannot drive 17 feet of car. Where do you park that anyhow? Your driver does, it appears. Okay, 5-series it is. Justice showed me a fab all-the-bells-and-whistles car that the manager drove for 4000 miles. Justice, I want a pre-owned car. When did used cars get to be "pre-owned" anyhow? Like we're too stupid to see that they are used cars. I also told Justice that I will have no black or white cars, and no black interiors. Once again, I cannot see, I am getting old, and I am scary driving in the dark, partly because I have blue eyes (yes, it matters). I need all the reflected light I can get. Also Xenon lights which I curse when someone driving the other way has them. This is when I found out that I have a BMW generation problem and besides there are hardly any "pre-owned" 5-series at all. This is a fact. I looked it up. Justice does not have any 5-series except that new one and it has a black interior. Nuts. The heads up display thing was probably just like something in a Tom Cruise movie. Moved on. Note to self: check eBay for used BMW 5-series.

 Next stop: Infiniti. I have been driving my son's Infiniti EX that I bought for my 1984 Mercedes and my Audi TT (mid-life crisis car), or exactly $28,000. I really like it. It has 298 horsepower and a great tech package. I make excuses to drive the EX. This is it. I walked in and explained my numbers and letters plight and the BMW I am replacing. The guy at the desk told another guy to show me a G37. I was a little bit irked that he didn't want to explain all the letters and numbers to me and I felt like the little woman picking out a car by what colors she likes. Turns out I didn't want a G37. I wanted an M37, a bigger and better car. Take that, Mr. Reception Desk. The M37 is on the right.


Interior just like EX which is a good thing. The EX is on the left and the M37 is on the right. Am I correct or what? Tech package same too. So is the engine. So is the weight. So how come it drives like an SUV and the SUV drives like a sports car? Beats me. Next.

This is Brent (oops, in aftermath of panic attack forgot to take any pix- you'll have to use your imagination- Brent is a nice looking black man). Brent works at the Mercedes dealer. Brent is happy to explain all the letters and numbers to me. I like a fast car. I like at least a V-8 so usually they show me the "flagship" car which is code for big and expensive. I do not want a 17 foot car. Brent finds out the sizes for me and we decide I need an E Series which is not the flagship car. You can get it with a big engine, though. Brent listens. I like Brent because he told me I am fun. I asked him if he gets a lot of jerks. He looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes. Guess so. We drove a used Mercedes. It is a nice regular car. Doesn't knock my sox off and the interior sucks. Since when did Mercedes decide not to offer leather interiors in some lines, the E Class in particular? Man, oh, man. I really do want to buy a car from Brent. The other guy they bring in to close the deal is named Harry. Harry is Eastern European and is really nice too. I told him the other cars I am looking at. We all agreed that the Hyundai (!) is the best car in its class but who can get over buying a Hyundai for $50,000? Anyhow, Harry gave me a good price as I was in business and all and understand these things. Off to Hyundai.

The Hyundai dealer is the most depressing I have ever seen. Even before I drove the Genesis (I knew this one because it doesn't have letters and numbers), I wanted to run screaming out of the dealership. There are low ceilings and chipped formica tables like they had in offices in the 1970s. Probably are the very same tables after decades of bored salespeople chipping away at the edges. I asked for a drink of water. I had to get it myself around the corner. They had one of those cooler things with cone-shaped cups. We had those in elementary school. That's so you had to drink it and not spill it on your desk. I didn't know they made conical paper cups anymore. Maybe they have a mimeograph too. This is Steven. Steven has only one Genesis. It is not used. I drove it anyway. Much to my surprise, the Genesis is a very peppy car. It handles very well. But the interior sucks. I know that I am paying an awful lot of attention to interiors, but as far as I am concerned, if you just want to get somewhere you can drive your truck and not pay attention to the interiors at all. But this is supposed to be a luxury sedan hunt, I am not getting the luxury vibe from any of these cars. The Infiniti is the best in that department. Steven's closer comes in the room. He is 12. He is practicing his "what can we do to get you into this car today" line. I told him nothing. He shrugged his shoulders and said ok. I just can't get over the name either. Next. Oops, there isn't a next. I suppose I could go to Lexus, but the SUV I test-drove when I was looking for a car for my kid drove like, well, an SUV. Irrational decision, but passed on Lexus.

I have been driving luxury sedans all afternoon. I do not have one of my very own. Fuck. Thought twice. Went back to BMW dealer. They have blue with oyster interior now! I like the oyster interiors. I don't know what it was called then, but my old BMW had this same color. Justice has an appointment coming in, so he gives me a paper to sign and I took the car out by myself. I didn't know they would let you do that. Cool. Pulled out of the lot. Blew my hair back. The thing is fucking unbelievable. A zillion horsepower. Feels like home. Hey wait a minute. This car is a 2011 and has 11,000 miles on it. It is used! And it is a 550i. Holy shit. How much does this puppy cost? Justice worked it out for me and emailed all the details to me so that I could have it for reference when I got home. Has everything but that cool cruise control thing that keeps you a certain distance from the guy in front of you. Has Xenon lights. Has cool heads up thing. Doesn't have 16 speakers, like I care. As I said, I have already had my midlife crisis. I do not need to blast XM-8, but it is fun. 12 speakers is more than enough for me. I can park with cool stuff that keeps you from bumping into stuff.

When I came back from my test drive, Justin said his appointment hadn't yet arrived. He leaned in the passenger side window. I asked Justice if he has any sisters. Three. Okay, do they watch Say Yes To The Dress? He had no idea what I was talking about. I explained that these overwrought engaged girls go with their disapproving mothers and bitchy sisters to try on wedding dresses. There is a lot of drama. Finally everyone agrees and the bride is glowing. The salesperson asks "Is this your dress?." Well, Justice, this is my dress. I have said Yes To The Dress.

Went home, ate bowl of Eagles Touchdown Sundae and collapsed in bed. It was four in the afternoon. Dreamt that there were a bunch of Alaskans writing nasty comments on my blog because I was making light of crab fishing and did I understand what happens to people's livelihood when the crane breaks down? Wrote nice note back, but still flipped out because my happy Alaska readers will love me no more. Woke up and realized Deadliest Catch isn't until tomorrow, so I can save my nightmares until then. Checked eBay for better deal on 550i's. Sorta hope that I can't find any so that I can buy Justice's car. Maybe I'll find one to use for negotiating. Set out today to buy $35,000 used car. Fell in love with $70,000 screamer. Just like a man.