On Vehicles

Not long after we arrived here, the Major and I concluded that we needed two cars (you'll remember our search for a vehicle back in January which involved test driving ex-police cars - we finally settled on a fairly ancient but serviceable Acura). Let me explain: he goes to work every day; I go to work two days a week and the other three working days don't really fancy being stuck at home with only a bike for transportation (anyone who tells you that Kansas is flat is lying). Eventually, after a week or so of me grumpily getting up at 6am to drive him to work in order to have the car, we were given an antique Chevrolet which a fellow Brit and his wife had bought for their daughters to learn to drive in. Her name was Marge, and she coughed and spluttered and farted like an old woman; her brakes didn't work properly, her windscreen wipers were even less reliable and the handbrake was null and void. Nevertheless, she did for us, and although after one particularly hair-raising drive down the I70 at night I would never take her on a highway again, she got us around.

Alas, however, Marge eventually became too decrepid to even get the Major to work and back. We were left vaguely muttering about getting another car and desperately coaxing Marge to life every morning when one day, the Major came back from work in a zippy little Jeep. Looked pretty good from the outside: a nightmare to drive. You could feel every bump and pothole, and cornering faster than 10mph would have had you tipped over onto the side. I was not a fan.

But guess what? The Jeep is now ours. Marge has disappeared (I think the Major just left her somewhere) and we now have the choice of smooth Japanese engineered comfort or rough and ready American bumpiness (did you know that Jeep stands for Just Enough Essential Parts? I've been longing to use that little gem of a fact for ages). Initially, I picked the former over the latter any day, but now the sun has come out, and the Jeep's true potential is beginning to emerge: because the doors and the roof come off. Bring on the summer tan.