Basic

Yesterday, we helped to make deliveries for the Rockville High School mulch sale, an annual booster club fundraiser.  Believe it or not, driving high school students around the suburbs and delivering mulch is not a bad way to spend an afternoon.  They all worked hard and stayed cheerful and polite, despite cold, wind, and intermittent hail.  I was proud of them.

I didn't mind driving, loading and unloading, or even the dirt, because my car was not involved in the delivery of mulch.  This is my car.

I love this car.  I didn't name it Brad or anything like that, but I LOVE this car.

My last car was a Honda Civic, which I bought new in 2001, when I was pregnant with my first child.  I drove it until he was in 7th grade. So obviously, I'm not much of a car person.  The Honda was actually the first brand-new car that I ever bought.  Every other car I'd ever owned was purchased used, with only two features in mind: Does it go when I apply the accelerator, and does it stop when I apply the brake?  Sold. This approach to car buying and car driving served me very well for many years, speed camera tickets notwithstanding.

For some reason, though, sometime in 2012, I started to notice Subarus, and I decided that I wanted one.  My husband wasn't impressed. His approach to car buying is completely different from mine.  He has never bought a used car, and he swears that he never will.  Even at 18, in college and working three jobs, he bought a brand-new car (a Nissan Maxima.) He wanted me to get something flashier and more luxurious, but I'm not very flashy or luxurious, and I'd just feel like an idiot driving around in a car that's more stylish than I am.  The Subaru is not beautiful, but it's good-natured and dependable, and I can think of worse things to be.

But just because my car isn't flashy, that doesn't mean that I'm not fussy about it.  I'm VERY fussy about my car.  My husband is particular about styling and horsepower and make, but the inside of his car is a damn free-for-all.  When they're in his car, my kids and their friends eat snacks, throw their muddy cleats and gear everywhere, and fling straw wrappers and empty chip bags all over the place.  A family of rodents could take up residence in there, and it wouldn't look any worse than it does now.

We took my husband's old Isuzu Axiom for the mulch deliveries, which, if possible, looks even worse than his other car, and the dirt is the least of its problems.  It doesn't matter where you drive in that car; it feels like you're driving an East German-made flatbed truck down an unpaved mountain road somewhere in the Caucasus.  Fifteen bags of mulch stuffed into the cargo hold actually improve the ride noticeably; I considered buying a few extra bags, just as ballast.

My son was quick to explain to his friends that his mom's other car is much cleaner than the one we were driving in, and one of the boys claimed that his father has a truck that is much dirtier than ours. Maybe it is, but his father wasn't delivering mulch, either.  He probably just has an average everyday dirty truck, but not so dirty that he can haul 15 bags of mulch at a time, for multiple deliveries, and then still not feel particularly compelled to clean up afterward.  Our truck didn't look any worse post-mulch than pre-mulch.  If you're going to claim that you have a dirty truck, then that's the standard that you need to live up to.  Or down to.  If there are raccoons or squirrels in that car, then they probably have plenty of shredded hardwood with which to feather their little nests.  My car is still nice and clean.