Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 5, 1995 TAG: 9501050026
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``What kind?''
I stalled for a minute, then offered: ``A maroon car.''
``Good, it has a color,'' she said. ``Now, does it have a name?''
``It's a station wagon.''
Silence, followed by the requisite OHMYGOD, followed by the requisite OHMYGOD-you've-turned-into-your-parents rant, followed by a silent outrage that seemed to swallow the 300 miles between us.
Sensing there was still more to the story - she is, after all, a crack investigative reporter - she hit me once again: ``Well, what KIND of station wagon?''
I told her to guess.
``A Ford Taurus?''
No, though that's exactly the car we set out to buy.
``OK, then what kind? What other kinds are there - I mean, you didn't go off and get, like, a Volvo or something. Did you?''
Silence.
``YOU DIDN'T?! ... NO, I don't believe it. ... You did?''
She reminded me of my first two cars - VW Bugs made in prior decades that not only didn't have heat, the insides of the windows iced up with every winter breath.
She reminded me of the seven-mile detours I used to take to avoid the State Highway Patrol inspection stops (not one of which I ever passed).
She reminded me of the warm May evening when I bought my used VW Rabbit and then drove her around town with the hand-crank windows down - and my first-ever heater blasting - just because I could.
Then, before I could tell her about my new power windows and my new heated seats, she hit me with the lowest of low blows.
``Oh, Mace,'' she said with the disappointment of an incontinent-dog owner who's just misstepped. ``You're so uncool, so ... yuppie.''
A few days into the new year, it's still sinking in: 1994 was the year I made the inevitable switch from cool to careful.
The year I had a baby and bought the safest car in America. The year I had a baby and started screaming at people who drive too fast down my street.
The year I paid off my student loan and started saving for my son's college. The year I finally took my diabetes doctor's advice and gave up all forms of sugar - including chocolate, including even Dove bars, including even all but one beer a week.
1994 was hell, and I'm not talking about colic or 3 a.m. feedings or even the Ben & Jerry's Heath Bar Crunch withdrawal.
I entered my fourth decade in 1994. I bought my premiere jar of Oil of Olay. My husband and I performed the morbid task of selecting someone to raise our son in the event that the air bag in our new/used Volvo doesn't rise to the occasion.
We considered the inevitable. We thought about death.
I tried to explain to the salesman at West Motors that ``the right image,'' as he put it, wasn't exactly what we were looking for when we drove our 'Dead-stickered VW onto his clean, non-oil-stained lot.
I even laughed when he gave us the Volvo version of the little- old-lady-who-drove-the-car-to-church-on-Sundays story: ``Miz Otey only drove this car to the Roanoke Country Club to play golf.''
I smirked when I noticed all the Volvo radios were set to public radio's FM-89. And I seriously doubted him when he told us, ``You watch, little Max will drive this car off to college one day.''
This is it, I thought as I signed the myriad loan papers. I have given up my desire to be dangerous, funky and relentlessly cool. I am the '90s version of Donna Reed - a diaper bag in one hand, my work-out bag in the other.
``I'll DIE if you take up golf,'' my friend Margaret said, howling with laughter.
I told her not to worry. Then I told her about the ongoing floor-mat debate my husband and I can't seem to shake.
The mats came with my first car, the '67 Bug, and I've been carting them around with me through three states, three jobs, three cars, untold awful boyfriends and now a husband and a baby.
No one riding in my other cars ever mentioned noticing the mats, which are Navy with an embossed cartoon beetle. But in the Volvo they stand out. Friends ask if they're really for Max (because they're childlike), or if they came with the car (because the beetles are maroon).
My husband thinks they look really tacky in our new/used car, but when I sit down in my heated seat, they give me a semblance of taking off airs.
I like to picture Max driving off to college with his butt warm and his feet oh-so-cool.
And an air bag, just in case.
Beth Macy a features department staff writer, did not receive a watch for her scarab watch band for Christmas. But she did receive a very sexy pair of jumper cables to match her new car. Her column runs Thursdays.
by CNB