Today was a big scary day for me. I'm less than two days away from driving a brand-spanking-new, arrived-on-the-lot-last-night Mazda. New things are always difficult for me...it's the unknown that unnerves me...and also what thrills me. For the first time, I was seeking purchase of a car not as a wife, a daughter, or a woman left with nothing and desperately needing a way to get around. My aunts stepped up to the plate and said, "I'll help you through!" I was grateful. It would have been something I would have asked of my mother.

I'm not so well versed in all of the ways of the world...and now that I know of pride's silliness, I can admit so freely—because nobody is so well versed in all the ways of the world, nobody. I was a wife and a caretaker...before that, a daughter and a student. This has been a year to define my own title.

I bought Aunt Rose's old car when she took advantage of the employee discounts in the late summer of 2005. She sold it to me cheap, and I ended up sticking more than double what it cost over the course of the last year—damages from that fender bend not included, obviously. It is a healthy car, thanks to me being like this with Bruce—easily the most approachable, teddy bear of a mechanic around. But, the '96 Contour is approaching its eleventh year of existence and at that age where more and more systems require maintenance, replacement.

I'm car stupid, I admit it. Stupider than stupid, if you want the unvarnished truth of the matter. I was giddy the other morning when I kicked something getting into the car and the warning chime to tell me the lights were on and the door was open actually worked! It stopped working by that afternoon, and I spent the better part of five minutes in the parking lot at work, randomly kicking at the floor and opening the door while the headlights shone. It was working again this afternoon, a week later...and I didn't kick it once!—but perhaps it knew today's agenda and sought to vie for a spot in my favor.

I've researched this car for months, this and a small selection of others...but this sang to me above the rest.



Dude, the seat raises! You pump it up like a barber's chair! The steering wheel not only tilts, but telescopes out! It's totally a short-person-loving car! I sat inside one of them and when asked if I wanted to test drive, I declined. "I know what I want. A test drive won't make or break that."

The salesman who initially quoted me an offer last Wednesday half-smiled. "In eight years," he said bouncing the key in the palm of his hand, "I've never sold one of these to someone who didn't first take it for a test drive." I proclaimed that I would be happy to be his first. My aunts, totally of the same mindset chimed in that in all their years of car-buying, they've never test-driven one of their vehicles. Brenda alone has had something like 11 or 13 car buying excursions...Debbie did not supply a number.

Steve seemed disbelieving of this record and widened his eyes perceptibly. I chirped in, "I buy my shoes online, too." Brenda added that she did the same and he seemed slightly disturbed all while accepting that he was dealing with a crowd of a different sort altogether. He promised he would tell stories of me, of the woman who bought a car without first test driving. I smiled to myself...with an act of seeming nonsense, I became noteworthy—it was all too fitting.

The car odometer currently reads 8, and when Steve told me he was going to fill it up with gas before turning it over to me, I told him the mileage better be under 10 or the deal is off, Bucko. He laughed and shook my hand, agreeing to my terms. We had the guy in charge of the sticky financial stuff agreeing to meet us for beer later on and I knew at once that car shopping with my aunts was better than a whole pound of Peanut M&M's© in one sitting!

When I met them, my aunts, at the restaurant for lunch, the waitstaff all knew it was car-shopping day. Brenda thinks they were bored. I think it was more a case of my aunts being talkative. I found it funny when the salesman left the office at one point and Debbie said, "Is he irritating anyone else!?" Brenda and I shook our heads—but I was quick to qualify that we had indulged in a little lunchtime adult beverage consumption while Deb stuck to straight lemonade. That might've been the deciding factor. It also might explain why Debbie's curiosity centered around what my interest rate would be and Brenda's around why my license background was redder than hers.