Impending car

Yesterday the mechanics at the Rover repair shop phoned my wife (The Lady) to let her know the use Rover sedan we’d been waiting for had come in. Even though it’s from the mid-1970s, it supposedly in really good condition. More importantly, it’s a stickshift! (Or, as they say here, ‘’a manual gearbox.’’)

We don’t need a second car. We’re grabbing it because it’s an older Rover with a stickshift, in good repair -- and that combination doesn’t come up much.

I was raised on Studebakers, and my wife was raised on old Rovers: close enough. I like older cars; they just have a better shape than the generic, wind-tunnel-developed, computer-designed, generic-looking cars of today). And I prefer stickshifts to automatic transmissions: I prefer having the extra control over the gear ratio, and it drive me nutty when I’m trying to merge into traffic in an automatic, I floor it -- and get moosh for acceleration response. Especially with other cars closing in fast.

There’s a few downsides: No good place to put it; we’re still parking our car over across the road at Mum and Dad’s. Financially, it comes at a bad time; we’re paying a fair bit out-of-pocket for house stuff, as the home loan doesn’t kick in until we actually have a signed building contract. And considering we work on the same campus, and I’m too devoted (!!!) to finishing my Dissertation to go off on my own on weekends, we don’t need a second car at the moment.

But -- once I finish the Dissertation, hoo boy! Outings with Tall Guy! Flea markets and pawn shops! Maybe going out to see some bands! And when I’m out and about, The Lady doesn’t like to be stranded without a car. Plus, even though we work on the same campus, we’ll eventually have to stagger our work days, such that one of us does the early shift, getting off work early to pick up The Bub (or, at that stage, The Kid) from school, while the other one works the late shift, seeing The Kid off to school and then working late.

Oh yeah: And the car is supposedly ‘’almond’’ color. Not sure what that is, but I think it’s a medium-brown. But maybe that’ll be hip in a super-boring way.

We’re gonna go check out the car on Saturday. My father-in-law says that if we don’t want the car, he may take it!!! :)


--GG