There's a new house going up in our neighborhood, and yesterday they were scheduled to pour the cement for the garage foundation starting at 8 am.Ours is a one-lane road, so we were given advance notice to allow us to move our cars to the other side of the pour in case we had morning appointments. So my husband drove the garbage down to the collection point the night before (the garbage trucks refuse to navigate the 10 speed bumps to our house; no surprises there!) and then left my car (the only one that can hold the garbage cans) on the far side of the pour so I could use it in the morning if I needed it.
He was planning to commute by motorcycle, and left just before 8 the next morning, figuring it would be possible to squeeze his bikes by the trucks. But alas, they were already in place and there was no way he could get by. So, knowing that I had no appointments before noon (and they were scheduled to be done by then), he brought the bike back and took the use of my car for the day -- which meant that I ran all my errands in our daughter's 1979 Mercedes, which you see pictured here: I shot this as part of my search for Line.
This car is actually the third in a series of used Mercedes we've acquired over the years. The used ones are delightfully cheap (as long as they're not the cute little collectible convertible ones), and they're built like tanks so they're the perfect vehicle for beginning drivers. The lines of this particular car are beautiful (as is the color); the seats are surprisingly comfortable (unlike my husband's pretty-much-deceased-but-still-in-our-driveway 87 Mercedes, which always throws my back out) and this car runs like a top, so it was no hardship to switch cars -- I just never do it.
And what I found - since I normally drive a dark green Honda pilot, which is an incredibly common and nondescript car -- was that it was kind of fun to be tootling around town in such a distinctive little car. It's been probably 12 years since I spent any time in a Mercedes (I had an old orange one back when we lived in the San Juans; it drowned in a high tide shortly after we moved here) and I'd forgotten what fun it is to be different. It's not a particularly zippy or responsive car, but it felt really good not to be driving a typical SUV (even though the Pilot's more of a crossover).
Interestingly enough, after driving my daughter's car for an afternoon, I found myself feeling kinda perky, a little uppity (in a good way!) and now I'm wondering if there may be some truth after all to that old adage: clothes (or cars) make the man (or woman!). Whatever the reason, I'm glad I stepped out of my usual comfort zone -- if only for an afternoon -- and I'm grateful that life occasionally brings us opportunities to do that. Having done it once, I won't mind doing it again -- she's off at college, after all, so someone should be driving it regularly ... right?
Yup. That's why I'll be driving it. Just because someone needs to. I'm not swayed by its beauty, no, no, not me!
1 comment:
What an amazing shot! These lines look kind of like a scimitar.
But yeah. There are definitely things that change the way we feel about ourselves in response to the world. Sometimes if I am feeling crappy I will deliberately put on a flouncy skirt so that my day will turn out better. It usually does: if I give in to that feeling and just put on my fatigues like I want to I am more liable to be lazy and feel gross/whatever.
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