Yesterday I sold the ultimate symbol of my midlife crisis: my 1992 red Camaro convertible, the one with the red leather seats and the 25th anniversary special edition package. That one. Little Red #2 was the successor to Little Red #1, the 1987 version with the T-tops and a cargo area that would kinda sorta let you bring home a Christmas tree if you finagled it just right. The midlife crisis went on long enough that I wore out the first midlife crisis car and bought a second one.
When I bought these two cars, I was living in a nice, family-oriented, fairly conservative suburb north of Atlanta. When I bought the second Camaro, the dealer made me such a poor offer on the first one that I kept it. I still find it odd that my neighbors never said a word to me about the two red Camaros parked side by side in my nice suburban garage. My hunch is that they had already made up their minds about me, and they decided I was certifiable, so they left it alone.
At any rate, somewhere midway through my seminary career, I had racked up way too many miles on Little Red #2, the fancy convertible, driving 30 miles each way to school. (Yes, I had the only red Camaro convertible in the seminary parking lots.) So I traded in Little Red #1 for a sport utility vehicle more suited to commuting down the expressways of metro Atlanta at rush hour. (Read: great big side mirrors and cupholders, lots of cupholders.) Now I had Little Red and Big Blue, also known as the Bookmobile -- when I was at seminary and the book I needed for a class was 30 miles away, going home to get it was out of the question, so I just kept ALL my books in the back of the SUV.
Eventually I ended up in south Louisiana with both vehicles. Big Blue got traded in for Big Red. It was a long time before I revealed to my rural congregation that I had a red Camaro convertible. Most of the time it sat in my garage in New Orleans.
After my emergency appendicitis surgery two years ago, I couldn't sit upright for quite awhile. Little Red's battery went dead in the garage. Eventually I had her towed in to the dealer and I told them, "Fix what needs fixing," which I know is a dangerous statement. Little Red got a new convertible top (the old one took a pine tree through the top in an Atlanta ice storm), extensive brake work, some transmission work, and, oh yes, a new battery. For awhile I drove it around the rural community and tried to reconnect with that woman who bought it and put 90,000 miles on it. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of her, listening to WRNO (the Rock o' Noo Awlins). But then Pastor Kathy resurfaced, and I went back to the SUV.
Little Red rode out Katrina in my garage in New Orleans. She didn't flood, and miraculously, the garage didn't collapse on top of her. (We have a saying in New Orleans about buildings like that: "The only thing holding it up is the termites holding hands together.") The battery didn't even go dead during the month the city was shut down, although I suspect someone siphoned some, but not all, of the gas. (With no electricity after the storm, people were desperate to get gas to get out of town.)
But in New Orleans A.K., the roads are in terrible shape. We had potholes B.K. In the world of A.K., crews cut huge squares in the asphalt to repair water and gas lines and hastily filled them with shells and other materials that quickly settled. I don't know what to call the caverns in the street, but "potholes" doesn't do them justice. For a car that rides about three inches off the pavement, it's not a fun ride anymore.
So when I learned on Saturday that my longtime dealer was going out of business, I upped my timeline for replacing Big Red and hustled downtown. (Katrina played a factor in the dealership's decision to close -- there are just fewer people working downtown to patronize a car dealership -- but the downtown dealership is quickly going the way of the dinosaur, no matter what city you live in.) I traded in Big Red and Little Red and got a good deal on a new SUV.
A HUGE SUV. OK, there are bigger ones. But this one is pretty big. It's going to take some getting used to, and on our narrow streets and in our narrow parking lots, I'm going to have to learn how to maneuver it.
It's the Catmobile. One of the facts of life in New Orleans A.K. is that we have geared ourselves to thinking about the next evacuation. I figure in the next five years our chances of having to evacuate the city for another hurricane are probably 100%. And the new Catmobile is big enough to handle six cats in cat carriers, plus all their stuff (kitty box, kitty litter, food, dishes, and bottled water) with a little room left for me, maybe even enough for a small suitcase and a laptop (so I can communicate with my friends by email).
Cinder, my 30-year-old horse, now lives back in North Georgia, well out of hurricane country. But if, and I say if, I got another horse down here, and if I should get a horse trailer, and if I learned how to pull it, this new SUV is big enough (and has a trailering package) to pull it. So picture me, six cats, and a horse stuck in contraflow traffic trying to get out of the way of a hurricane. I hope it never comes to that. But if it does, the Catmobile will be ready!
Okay, I admit it. What really sold me on the Catmobile was the cool XM Satellite Radio package. WRNO, the Rock o' Noo Awlins, bit the dust a month or so ago after nearly 40 years on the air. But now I have a gazillion channels of satellite radio to keep me amused. It's a brand new day.
1 comment:
Reading your posts is a pleasant way -- if pleasant is the right word -- to inform oneself about the continuing fallout (or cave-in) from Katrina. It's not the story, but it is essential to the telling of the story. That gives it weight. And so:
Cat power!
Michael Robertson
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