…But Can’t Have
I’ll admit that I’m shallow enough to like presents, just not any present. I only want a couple of things this Christmas and, sadly, I can’t have either one. I’ve been called a “gear head”, but this is inaccurate. I don’t like working on cars, I just want to drive them and I don’t want to drive just any car. I like them small, agile and fast. To my very great delight, I owned an S2000 after driving boring four-door vehicles for years. Better for carting kids to and fro, they were the practical choice. Besides, my DH and I were still in grad school and there just wasn’t money for extravagant items…like hot, fast cars.
Then when the kids got older and we finally finished school, my loving hubby found a way to buy me the car I’d dreamed of. For seven joyful years, I drove an amazing Honda S2000 we bought on Ebay. It was a dream. Some reviews say that S2000s have a rough, hard ride, but I appreciated being able to feel the road. When I’m going 85 mph, I need to know that. The Honda drove like an incredibly responsive race car. It only had a four-cylinder engine(I was told this. I don’t really care), but it never failed to have power when I needed it. And driving on the highway sometimes requires a burst of speed, particularly when you’re small. But all things wear out and I was persuaded to sadly sell my S2000 after I’d put nearly 100,000 miles on it. There were tiny holes in the roof that I knew would get bigger and replacing parts on this car wasn’t cheap.
So, I sold the S2000, weeping silently inside. By that time, I had a slightly newer, much lower mileage BMW Z4 sitting in my garage. Nice car, just not as nice in the ways I want. The BMW brand brings a prestige I couldn’t give a flip about. As a matter of fact, I’m a little uncomfortable with it. But that’s not the worst. The Z4–while luxurious in many ways–doesn’t handle as well and has a funky, hard-to-manage clutch. I was raised on stick shift cars, but this one is difficult to manage. It has seat warmers and Bluetooth capacity, but every time a S2000 passes me, I cry inside.
To my great grief, I can’t even work toward getting a new S3000–the model that was supposed to replace the S2000–because Honda decided the world financial economic downturn wouldn’t support this vehicle. They killed plans to bring it out. So, I pine for a S3000 and can’t have one.
The other thing I’d love to get for Christmas, I may one day have…but I can’t have it now.
I’m a cat lover, which you’ve recognized from the kitty photos all over my site. I’ve been a cat owner as long as I can remember. When my daughters were in high school, we adopted a pair of litter mates–a boy and a girl. They were technically my daughters’ cats, but they live in our home and I loved them. At least, I loved the girl kitty. She was a sweetheart who would lie on her back, completely relaxed. To our shock and grief, she died of kidney issues when she was only two. Her brother, however, is still with us and he’s driving me crazy. He’s used to having another cat around and without one, he feels lonely. He’s getting old now and we’ve had several kitties live with us. The last one was my daughter’s cat who she just took to live with her in Brooklyn where she’s doing her ER residency.
I miss that kitty so much. Zeke is an only cat now and he yowls all the danged time. Randomly and loudly. He’s alternately needy and fine. He yells at all hours of the day and night. I don’t know the term for cat-cide, but I’ve felt cat-cidal. So, why not get another kitten? Because we don’t want the new kitty to get used to Zeke. We want a single kitty, happy to live without other cats.
So, the two things I want for Christmas, I can’t have. A S3000 and a kitten.