I Have Met the Enemy and It's In my Garage

As I write this, my eyes are bleary from two-plus hours of reading slightly out of date magazines in a car dealership waiting room -- whilst SpongeBob blares out of the overhead TV and my 5-year-old drains the water cooler (drinking, but also scattering water about the room like a priest blessing the altar.)

And the worst part is that I don't remember anything I read, except a Motor Trend car comparison that showed the vehicle my husband was making a deal on in another room had one of the worst 0-60 times of any car listed. Just what you want to learn as your significant other is signing away every little bit of your expendable income for the foreseeable future.

So you sit there, eyes slightly unfocused, trying not to freak out on your kids sprawled haphazardly on the who-knows-the-last-time-it-was-cleaned carpet and you as you ponder whether you are selling out by joining the lemmings who have jumped off the cliff into their nice shiny SUVs.

If I didn't make myself clear; yes, we now have an SUV in our garage. We have crossed over to the dark side.

Strangely enough, my 5-year-old christened the vehicle "Dark" and has been calling it that all evening. This, without any prompting on my part. She began calling it that as soon as the deal was done; as if somehow she senses that there is something murky about this choice.

Or maybe it's just because the SUV is black.

And not to be heavy on symbolism, but there was a torrential downpour as my husband came into that waiting room bearing the keys to his new purchase.

I can't pinpoint exactly when the SUV became my symbol of everything that was wrong with our suburban landscape. But I have felt daily disdain for the monstrosities that rest in the driveways of nearly every house on our street.

Imagine if you will the typical school function --a parade of gas-guzzlers stream into the school lot like circus elephants linked trunk to tail. And there I am, interrupting the rhythm, with my mid-size coupe. It's actually rather comical to see (if I could see anything beyond the vehicles that surround me)

But I relish my individuality. I wear it like a badge of honor. I may live here, but I'm not like you, and I don't want to be.

As I told one of the car salespeople -- I'm a sedan kind of person.

I like my cars to be cars. I have no desire to drive a truck.

And somehow, we've come to this interloper in our garage.

Here come the rationalizations/excuses --my husband needs AWD because he has a job where he must commute no matter how much snow is out there unplowed on the roads. This is a fact.

His former, now non-functioning, car was a Subaru Outback. And face it, even though it's got that whole rugged Australian wilderness name, it's a station wagon. And when you think macho vehicle, you do not think station wagon.

So after, oh nine years or so of wagon, you can't blame the guy for wanting something a bit more massive (well, I can blame him, but he's got many other redeeming qualities that more than make up for this.)

And it is a small SUV, if you can get around that contradiction in terms. Actually, it's shorter than our station wagon and probably gets about the same mileage as the Outback did before it died a loud and painful death in our garage.

Even as I admire the new vehicle for its shiny black body and large, manly wheels (not to mention the oversized parking brake that brushes lovingly against my thigh as I occupy the front passenger seat) I vow that I shall never drive it. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever.

However, as we climb back into "Dark" after showing it to my mother-in-law, we see a beautiful rainbow reaching up from the horizon. Could it be a sign that the heavens have forgiven us our foray into automotive excess?

With that in mind, I will try to sleep a peaceful sleep tonight, hoping that we have not become the enemy -- and that this vehicle is just another prop in our suburban masquerade.