Earlier this year Paul’s Jurassic Truck died. We had been having trouble with it and we knew it needed a new engine and suddenly one day it turned a corner downtown, made terrible noises and died a smoky death. Paul towed it home to sit in our parking stall as our “outdoor storage” (it currently contains an entertainment centre, three CD racks, and a bottle of raspberry sourpuss). He went out to the farm and resurrected Stuart, his little white tempo, who had been languishing at the farm for two years waiting to be sold.

Since then we have been limping along. My Stanley (a Volvo station wagon) is 26 years old, and while being extremely low maintenance this year it is still kind of a wonder that he runs at all. Paul’s tempo turned out to need quite a bit of work and was painfully unreliable in the last couple of months. Finally we came to the conclusion that we really needed a new vehicle; one that was reliable and didn’t cost us a fortune in repairs. Perhaps even a vehicle that was made in this century (gasp!)

Last Thursday we made arrangements to meet with the husband of a co-worker who worked at a Ford dealership. He was actually off on sick leave, which we didn’t realize, and came in especially for us. (Please note: when buying a vehicle, do not start off feeling guilty). He had a good deal on a 2005 Escape that we very seriously considered, until we discovered that, in the long run, it was actually cheaper to get a 2006 (!) We ended up test driving the vehicle overnight but it turns out that I just couldn’t get comfortable in it. Either my foot was all crunched up by the bump under the carpet by the gas pedal or my arms were stretched out so far forward that my back cramped. By the time I had finished all of my driving, my ankle hurt, my back was cramping, and I felt like I’d done 50 sit-ups. Based on this, we ended up not getting the vehicle, but only with considerable angst and guilt.

Still, we are on the hunt for a new vehicle. We made a list of things that we liked about the Escape that we wanted in our new car. It gives you a bit of a picture of the state of our vehicles when our list included things like: “wipers that work” and “a good heater” and “accelerates”. We want a vehicle with 4X4, preferably with a manual transmission, and probably an SUV so next on the list is the Honda CR-V. Hopefully we will manage to find something that is comfortable for both of us.

I guess my parents had this in mind when they clipped out the article about a contest from Chevrolet where the company gave away a car to the couple that had the greatest height differential. The couple that won had a 2’2” height differential and were 6’6” and 4’4” respectively. Well, if they can find a vehicle that works, so can we.