I think we’re getting a new car

I’d like to–firstly–apologize to Denny and his new bride, Aprille. You see, Denny bought a Volk­swa­gen Pas­sat a lit­tle bit after I bought one, and I like to think I had at least some hand in him choos­ing to go with it. And I think he’s been happy with it, and I know we’ve been pretty happy with ours (her name is Greta) but I gotta say, I don’t get the feel­ing that she’s a decade-lasting kind of car. I mean, we’ve had her for five years now, and she’s served us pretty well (we’re going to rec­i­p­ro­cate with an expen­sive detail­ing and a cou­ple of new floor mats soon).

But.

We’re tak­ing the first step in our multi-year car own­er­ship plan (I would be sur­prised to hear Tiffany call it a plan, but I like my Plans, so it’s a plan) that will result, even­tu­ally, in our own­ing a mini­van and a com­mut­ing car. Right now we have Julia (bless her 13-year-old E-for-economy chas­sis!) and Greta. Julia feels like–and dri­ves like–a go cart, albeit a very much loved one. And Greta has reached midlife.

We need to buy our com­muter vehi­cle. Greta will con­tinue to serve until we grad­u­ate to a mini­van, and Julia, bless her again, will be sold off to a nice fam­ily in the coun­try where she will get milk and cook­ies for the rest of her days. Right, Mommy?

We’re not get­ting a Volk­swa­gen. I love how Greta dri­ves, and I love the turbo in her engine. I don’t like how often we took her in dur­ing her two years of war­ranty. I don’t like only two years of war­ranty. I don’t like how we had sen­sor mal­func­tions (STOP STOP STOP THE CAR. DO NOT DRIVE FURTHER! Oh, wait, just a mal­func­tion. So sorry.). I don’t like how expen­sive she was for the qual­ity I feel we got out of her.

So. Com­muter car, I said? Small, maybe sporty. Good gas mileage. Not too expen­sive. Fun to drive. Reli­able. A lit­tle bit of flair, maybe. Mazda 3? Golf? Impreza?

Nope. We’re (prob­a­bly) get­ting a Prius. Yes, a Toy­ota Prius. We snagged first dibs on a Salsa Red Prius already on the boat on its way to Nebraska. Small? Not really. Sporty? Well, it’s not slug­gish. Inex­pen­sive? Um… no. But good gas mileage? Indeed. (EPA est­mates 51 city / 60 high­way / 55 over­all! though online user reports sug­gest that is a lit­tle exag­ger­ated… more like 44 over­all) Fun to drive? By all accounts, it most cer­tainly is… at least with all the gad­gets. Flairific? What would _you_ call Salsa Red?

So. It arrives towards the end of the month, maybe the begin­ning of Sep­tem­ber. We test drive it. If we like it, she’s ours. If we don’t, we back out, and go take a look at a Mazda 3.

I’m just a lit­tle excited.