New wheels

Last ride? (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—“How come yer buyin’ a new car?” A friend exclaimed. What’s wrong with what you got?”
“Nothing really,” I answered. “I could keep it another year or two, but my kid-brother in Boston, who recently retired and became part-owner in a used-car dealership that flips cars, suggested he could get me a newer car.
My brother delivered the car Wednesday afternoon. He drove all the way from Boston with my new car on a trailer. His partner came along to help, and cow-tow when commanded.
My brother retired from helping run an electricity power plant. But not yet from being a boss-man.
My previous car was eight years old at 113,000 miles, and was starting to rust. A few minor things didn’t work, and it was filthy.
So after the usual pot-shots and brotherly snide-remarks I said do it.
He bid a 2017 lease-return Ford Escape, and that’s what’s pictured.
Leather seats, and a blizzard of gizmos; the Titanium model, not “Titanic,” as my wife’s brother’s first wife would say.
Brother-to-brother, $1,000 for his dealership.
Seemed fair. He told me the amount he needed, and it was $2,000 less than I expected.
I’m getting a $25,000 used car for $22,000. My figures are probably wrong, but what he needed was way less than what I thought it would be.
Plus it’s brother-to-brother; he’s not just flipping a car. He tested it himself. His buyer is the guy who changed his diapers.
My old car has been stone reliable. Two batteries, two tire-sets, and a complete exhaust-system.
“You got a good one!” my service-guy says. Same Ford dealer I bought it from.
“No,” I thought to myself. “That car got a good owner. One who followed service recommendations, and didn’t scrimp.”
That Ford dealer probably took me to the cleaners when he sold me that car. I bought it not long after my wife died, and was in no shape to play the car-purchase game.
My brother demanded I test-drive my new car as soon as he arrived. All I did was drive it to my nearby town park so I could use their Porta-John.
Fevered machinations began. The license-plates on my old car were removed, along with a few other things I hadn’t got to yet. I already had removed a lot.
I hate to let my old car go. It’s been extremely reliable, but is filthy inside thanks to my previous dog, and the difficulty of arranging interior detailing.
I had it detailed once, but that dealer now only does their own cars. I’d do it myself, but various other things impinge: lawn to mow, laundry to do, bills to pay, and mainly writing. Also a dog to walk when I had one.
PRIORITIES MAN! Cleaning the interior of my previous car was back-burner.
Since it’s a Massachusetts car, my brother couldn’t sell directly to me. We had to involve a local car-dealer, my hairdresser, who also flips cars.
$450 for my hairdresser, plus fees, plus sales-tax equals $2,241.40. The gumint gets most, and my hairdresser is doing me a favor.
“So what do you think?” My brother asked.
“Don’t know yet,” I said. “Every time I go to drive it: ‘gimme the keys!’”
He then wanted to use some distant restaurant to which I never been, and then drive some roundabout route to get directly back to my house afterwards.
“I live here, and you don’t!” I shouted. “It’s the route I’d take if I could ever drive this thing.”
We also coulda had supper in Canandaigua, but heaven-forbid I suggest someplace other than that far-away restaurant he found via Google.
It's a nice car, but rather intimidating = gizmos I’ll never use. I felt so prior century I wonder how I attract ladies as well as I do.
All I want it to do is reliably cart me from pillar-to-post, and stay outta the shop!
We “paired” my iPhone to my new car. “Easy as pie,” my brother’s co-owner said. “Everything is right here on your steering wheel.”
“Same as my old car,” I commented. “I get a Bluetooth phone-call, and I cut it off by mistakenly hitting the wrong button. I hafta pull off the road to answer a Bluetooth, usually by ‘try it and see what happens.’
Don't forget you’re talking to a stroke survivor. I run on what’s left, and it ain’t all eight.
And everything involves computers. I’m using one right now, and I know how computers like to throw hairballs atcha.
What happens when my keyless-start fails? Call Triple-A!
“If anything can fail, it will,” I said.
Even the back tailgate is electric. What if I hafta go manual? Call Triple-A again, and those Ford service-guys drain my wallet.
My impression is this car proves I’m completely out-of-it yet I have many lady-friends.
“Yeah,” my brother bellowed. “At least two blogs per week celebrating his lady-friend exploits.”
“Well yes,” I commented. “You didn’t have the parents I had. They weren’t telling you ‘no pretty lady will associate with you!’”
That it’s happening to me is mind-blowing.

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on...” (Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám)

• “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on...” in Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát is a line I gleaned thanks to Houghton College’s liberal arts education. Class of 1966, and I never regretted it. (Too many things like that remain.)