Katie said, “Oh my God, your car is gorgeous! The inside looks like the red sole of a Louboutin shoe!”
I wanted to tell her that the color was called cognac. But I didn’t.
I was supposed to drive Katie from the café to her hotel. My car wasn’t clean. It only gets cleaned when I take it in for service every six months, and in the three or four years I’ve owned it, I’ve probably taken it to a car wash once or twice.
When I was about to trade in my old Toyota for a new car, I still didn’t have enough money saved for a down payment on a house. I needed something to make me feel like I was accomplishing something in those days, and a car was the closest thing.
After going back and forth countless times, I was leaning toward a Mercedes-Benz. I thought someone would talk me out of it at the last minute.
Back then, I was dating someone from a relatively wealthy family. One of those families where the entire family fortune is shared and no one really owns anything individually. Properties in Dubai, Turkey, Kabul, Mazar, one of the Soviet republics, trips to Paris, and all that. Yet they still lived communally. (another story for another time)
Anyway, he would pick me up, and we’d go from one dealership to another. It turned out the Mercedes I wanted wasn’t available and would have to be ordered. I told him, “Look, man, if I don’t buy a car now, even if I just put down a deposit, I’m going to change my mind later.”
He said we should go to the BMW dealership.
BMW, to me, was a symbol of new money. Still is, at least until Tesla came along!
Anyway, we went to BMW, and I picked this one. A beauty, a brand new! A 330i xDrive Sport, with cognac-red leather interior.
I have never treated this car with the respect it deserves. From letting my inexperienced niece drive it and having to replace a fender and a door after she got into an accident, to never taking it to the car wash, and everything else.
What I’m trying to say is that even though I bought this car with my own savings, hard-earned through years of work, I never felt I deserved it.
I don’t know how to explain it...
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