Retiring the War Horse

I started cleaning out my Explorer today and I’m kind of sad about it. I’m going to miss that truck. It was the first big adult purchase I made. I had been at Merrill Lynch for about six months, and for the first time in my life I could afford a car. I was twenty-nine and wanted something cool, and in 2001 cool was an SUV. I got it before I was married. I got it before I even proposed. It was the last high point of American engineering. The Ford Explorer was, and still is, the dollar for dollar best SUV made. It’s a 1997 and there haven’t been any problems with it, outside stuff that wears out. I’ve had to replace the battery, the brakes and the tires – end of list. The only downside, especially when I had to schlep to Baymeadows every day, was that, at its best, my Explorer got fifteen miles to the gallon. When I bought it gasoline was under $1.20 a gallon so nobody cared about mileage. When gas broke $4 a gallon I knew it was time to make a change. Did you know that when you crack the $100 mark on a pump it stops and you have to talk to a clerk to reset it so you can continue filling up your tank? This happened to me. They had reprogrammed the machines about six weeks earlier because the pumps had been set to shut off at $75 and it was slowing everything up. It was like 1975. I was running on fumes waiting for the price to come back down. I didn’t want to pay $4.45 a gallon, and I was driving only five miles a day so it wasn’t like I was going to get stuck in the middle of nowhere. I pushed it. My fuel light was on for at least ten days before I chickened out and filled it up. The price gouging of the last couple of years has put me off guzzlers for good. I’m not real happy about the mileage that Odyssey is getting. If I buy a car just for me, I’m getting a Toyota Prius or some kind of Vespa. That’s the difference between twenty-nine year old me and thirty-eight year old me. I’d rather look like a dork and save money than drive a cool car. I think I’m laying the last piece of my youth to rest, and that makes me sad.