“Dude, where’s my car?” – Dude, Where’s My Car?
I wonder if her Tiffany is twisted, too?
I recall reading a story about several wives at a kid’s soccer game in Dallas. They were comparing cars – each of them had a new Mercedes® or similar luxury car. One of the wives, exasperated, mentioned their really wealthy friend, Martha, who drove around in an older car. “I wish I was as rich as Martha. Then I wouldn’t have to drive a new car.”
It’s always fascinated me that there are people who feel that they have to spend money for appearances. The Mrs. can vouch for that – it’s because of her vocal insistence that I spend money for deodorant, which I guess is like a Mercedes™, except Old Spice© is cheaper and costs much less to insure.
I know, I know, having to spend money to impress people is not a club I want to be in, but I find it interesting nevertheless. After all, I’m in an even more exclusive club: guys who want to be able to buy a pickup with a stick shift, a vinyl bench seat and rubber flooring instead of carpet. As nearly as I can tell from the domestic pickup truck market, this particular club has one member. Me.
The world seems to have gone into a mode that is based in luxury. A few years ago, I visited a friend, Dave. Dave had a new pickup truck. As we drove around on a fairly warm day, I noticed that my butt was getting . . . cold. That’s not something that normally happens to my butt by itself. It turns out his pickup truck didn’t have just have heated seats, it had climate controlled seats that also got cold.
I’m sure it has seats that cook you at 350°F or freeze you to -40°F.
I was amused – I didn’t even know that such a thing existed. I hadn’t had my butt chilled for my pleasure before, except for that one time in Amsterdam. Dave, however, didn’t buy the pickup because he was showing off or because he wanted specifically to chill my butt – he bought it because he wanted it. And he probably paid cash.
Just kidding. Dave probably wrote a check.
I wasn’t jealous of Dave’s truck. It wasn’t something that I’d ever buy for myself. My current daily driver is older than Pugsley, and has nearly 180,000 miles (3,500 kilograms) on it, and only 36,000 miles (45°C) on the latest oil change. I’m wanting to keep it until it’s driven at least one light-second, which is 186,000 miles (63 meters). Fingers crossed. But I’m pretty sure I won’t get my car to the Moon – that’s 226,000 miles (5 liters), and I’m nearly certain my fuel pump will die again before then, plus Allstate® won’t insure translunar travel, I mean, at least not with full coverage.
I’m sorry. I Apollo-gize. And, yes, I know that Neil never had a sweet ride like this one.
I’m not against spending money, but I think you should spend money like Fuzzy Pink Niven (Hugo® winning author Larry Niven’s wife) spends calories:
Potato chips, candy, whipped cream, or a hot fudge sundae may involve you, your dietician, your wardrobe, and other factors. But FP’s Law implies: Don’t eat soggy potato chips, or cheap candy, or fake whipped cream, or an inferior hot fudge sundae.
I think that advice on calories applies to many areas of life. I have a budget of money. There are things I have to buy, and have to spend it on – The Mrs. gets rather cranky if I don’t feed her. Beyond those necessities, with any left over, I have a choice as to what I spend it on, and when I spend it. Where Dave chooses to spend his on a really cool pickup truck, and a collection of pinball machines, my choices are different.
But those choices are mine, just like Dave’s choices are his.
My ideal truck, complete with DIY garage!
Money represents potential. It is the potential to create, the potential to build, the potential to serve. In many ways, it represents the potential for future choices.
Time represents the potential for future choices as well. We choose how to spend our money as if it is limited, but we choose to spend our time as if it’s unlimited? Money comes and goes, but my budget of time is my life, measured in minutes and seconds. Spending my time is nothing less than spending my life. Just like a pickup seat determines how warm or cold our butts are, how we spend our time (and who we spend our time with) determines who we are.
Is it just me or does this picture of Beto O’Rourke look just a bit off?
Knowing this, go and make your choices today.
Because my butt is warm. (That’s supposed to be motivational.)
Lifelong Lawn Guylander here, so no need to define ‘status-seeking A-hole’ for me. Thanks to some very fortuitous (and, admittedly, suspicious) timing I may be the poorest guy in one of the richest towns. The real estate market here hiccuped at one point several years ago and we bought in at precisely the right moment. Sometimes it pays to not have a clue.
In our first year or so living here amongst the self-anointed elite I used to make a joke of stopping suddenly as we proceeded through town, with a look of intense concentration on my face, and demand of my wife, “Do you smell that?!?” Being the good dupe that she is, she would always fall for it and say, “What? What is it? What do you smell?” And I would quietly reply, “Money”.
It has become patently obvious since those days that what I ACTUALLY smell is ‘debt’. Its not CEOs and high-powered lawyers buying those brick mausoleums on exquisitely manicured acres in my neighborhood. Its schoolteachers. And cops. And nurses. And engineers. The once and former ‘middle class’ that seems to have awakened one day in general agreement that they ‘deserve’ a 4400 square foot house with a pair of matching Jags in the 3-car garage (plus ‘weekend car’). Its a Potemkin village populated almost exclusively by overextended poseurs who keep a jealous eye on one another, lest they discover that the creep next door has a new(er) toy and has therefore pulled ahead in the race to foreclosure.
With leather upholstery in my 15 year old Honda, I’ve got heated seats in summer and chilled seats in winter. Not quite in the same league as your pampered pickup driver, but my old cars are owned, not financed. Aside from a few ancient sentimental items of little or no intrinsic worth, I own literally nothing material that I could not bear to part with. From my perspective, this makes me the richest guy in town.
Your comments is great start to finish, and the last two sentences are gold. And, (really!) nothing wrong at all with owning nice things.
You also hit on the word I hate the most – deserve. That word has caused more strife than any other.
I was sitting on the porch last evening, when I had the thought of my mortality appeared. Being past sixty only made the realization of my insured death more stark. My time is less than earlier, my ability to use the remaining time is hampered by the ravages of age, and the big balancing act is to determine how big a gamble I’m willing to take for retirement. It was an uncomfortable feeling for a moment, but half a bottle of wine removed anymore thoughts about something I hope is not impending.
Generally we make due. It’s usually only a matter of how. And if you (often) get to choose the “how” you’re good with.
Wine is nice for temporary removing worries that you shouldn’t have been worrying about in the first place . . . .
One of the only interesting things about working in banking was seeing the difference between appearances and reality. You have few secrets from someone with access to your bank records. It was often the case that the guy with the fancy car or the lady with the most fashionable clothing was always skirting the edge of being overdrawn. They had nothing but some fleeting status symbols. The old guy with dirty jeans? He had hundreds of thousands in the bank.
Dress down, drive old, act dumb.
Irregardless, the dogs don’t seem to notice as long as I occasionally chuck a tennis-ball their way.
And this aligns with the advice:
“Avoid crowds.”
It does. The world doesn’t need to know my business, so I try to share as little as possible.
And I wish I would have been smart enough to act dumb earlier in life. It would have saved more than one complication.
It was that way in Fairbanks – the richest guy in town wore insulated bib overalls in the winter. And not new ones.
At one time in my life I drove copious miles a year (over 50K more like 100K) as a part of my job and having a car that would not crap out was essential. Typically I replaced my vehicles every other year.
Later on I ended up keeping the last P/U I bought past employment and finally sent it to pasture after 220K miles. Vehicles with more than 100K on them are right up my alley and I have gone 2000 miles to drive an old car back and then put 100K on it over 10 years.
You have to remember that where I live, the salt will get your car normally before wear and tear will. These days I drive an old subruban with nearly 250K miles on it and have no intentions of replacing it. It would not make sense.
My kids are the antithesis of the typical young adults of today. They both drive standards and have since they were in their teens. When I was their age the same was true for me. The cost of a rebuild of an automatic transmission versus a clutch cemented that thinking.
In any event, it has never been about the sticker in the window or the heated seats or the lack thereof. My criteria are: 4X4, A/C, lots of room for stuff; not cramped or mid sized. Currently I have a suburban dead-dinosaur guzzling truck and I love making Greta cry.
Damn the Carbon Credits!!! Full speed ahead!
Heh heh . . . if only I could get an external combustion engine . . .
I drive the car I want to be driving and that’s good enough for me – a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder convertible. It had 60K miles on it when I bought it four years ago come April and “only” 78K miles now. I bought it for a bargain off of a rich guy in mint condition who had kept it garaged as a weekend toy. It is my 5th and “best” used convertible I’ve owned since 1991. I like to drive around in it and pretend that my ongoing eternal identity crisis is a “middle aged” one (instead of my actual “elder” one…).
60 ain’t the new 40. Or even 50. But when the sun is low and the air is warm and the wind is in your hair, you can almost pretend that it is.
Not a car person, but I really love my dumpy old Subaru (I got It back when Paul Hogan was doing the ads) It drives like a car and handles snowy icy roads like a champ. I can get an entire off site library program including tent, tables and bookcarts in it and hauled across a pasture to set up. It just… Works. And I’m pretty sure you cannot get that anymore.
Subarus were insanely popular in Fairbanks when we lived there. I was always a bit skeptical, since backwards it says U R A Bus.
Hair? What is hair?
Beto O’Rourke’s head looks off in real life, so any picture has to.
I can drive a stick shift, all my kids can drive a stick shift. I can do it without the clutch, 5 speed in the car or 13 speed in an 18 wheeler. You can have that. No longer interested in that much work, no longer interested in a fast car, no longer care about a sports car. I like opening the door of my truck and SUV and being able to put my feet on the ground without struggling..
Sticks are nice for sporty cars. I have a (slightly) sporty car, and it’s an automatic. Takes a wee bit of the fun out of it.
You are most certainly not the only one who wants an old pickup like you described above. I want another one, badly.
I have had several of them and have regretted getting rid of every one of them. Now they are getting hard to find and crazy expensive.
My definition of a pickup is something you can open up the doors on and hose the floor off with a garden hose.
I want another early 60’s Ford with a straight six and a four speed.
When I find one and I will, I would like it to be the last freaking vehicle I ever buy.
Pa Wilder had a 1970 GMC Jimmy, complete with winch and CB. Still sad I let that one get away.