Clever Magazine, Summer '08 " Decisions " (www.clevermag.com)

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Decisions, Decisions:
the used car dilemma

By Elisha Webster

Elisha resides in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, where she enjoys painting pink elephants onto kitschy paintings and eating wasabi peas. She is very good at waiting tables, and utilizes this skill to make money. If you want to send her wasabi peas or an anonymous love letter, she will be happy to give you her mailing address.

I recently purchased a used car. I also recently moved in with my boyfriend, D. My search for a vehicle began in late January and ended late March. My search for a companion began when I was eleven. My search for both was epic.

D was my chauffer, toting my bicycle-chaffed rear-end all over the state in pursuit of leads culled from craigslist and newspapers. He was placid, patient, and as uninvolved in the actual decision-making process as possible. I stank up his truck with cigarettes and littered his floor with outdated newsprint and disposable coffee cups.

“This one feels good. I like the way he talked about it,” I said as D drove me forty miles to test drive a ‘91 Saab, with 300,000 miles and an up-to-date inspection. “He says the car starts right up and says, Where to, boss? He actually said: Where to, boss. I really think this could be the one…” D nodded and smiled.

When we drove the forty miles home, empty-handed save for a fresh carton of Camel Lights and a bag of gas station oriental mix, I said, “I don’t know, I mean that clicking sound could’ve been nothing, but it’s not worth the risk. Don’t you think? I hope I’m not making a mistake, but I just don’t trust it.” D nodded and smiled again. Then he laid his hand on mine and squeezed.

The search was an emotional rollercoaster ride of hopeful encounters, second guessing, and disappointed phone calls home—and this rollercoaster ride was disturbingly familiar. I discovered the source of this familiarity one afternoon when D and I stopped for gas. I filled up his tank while he went inside for bottled water. When I walked into the store to pay, he was leaned across the counter engaged in an animated conversation with a pretty cashier. While I was not particularly threatened by the situation, a red flag snapped to attention in the periphery of my consciousness. This red flag was learned instinct, an automatic reaction to behavior I associated with past heartbreak. While D flirting with the pretty cashier was not indicative of anything disastrous, it was a clicking sound; and clicking sounds, no matter how faint, are unnerving.

And that’s when it hit me: the staggering parallel between my search for a used vehicle and my search for an acceptable mate.

One of the first questions you ask when shopping for a used vehicle is: Why is the car on the market in the first place? I sought out ads with innocuous excuses like:

My wife is forcing me to sell it.

I’ve no room for it in my garage.

I’m traveling abroad and need the extra cash.

We’re having a baby and need more space.

These excuses were used often. I began to wonder if there was an excess of pushy wives and too small garages, or if I were being mislead. I eyed the sellers suspiciously, noting their slightest fidget, cringing if they looked upwards and to the left, having read somewhere that this gesture signaled untruth.

I experimented with different car-shopping personas. As the Aggressive, Cynical Used Car Shopper, I tossed indifferent shrugs over my shoulder and kicked at car tires. As the Confident, Well-Informed Used Car Shopper, I cited blue book values and maintained excellent eye contact. Lastly, as the Helpless, Pitiable Used Car Shopper, I mustered dewy expressions of vulnerability and innocence, asking heartbreakingly simple questions like, “But is it a good car?”

Initially, I enjoyed the hunt for a car. I sat in the passenger seat, optimistically bottlenecking every car parked too close to the road. Just-washed cars blinked from their driveways with promises of For Sale signs snug underneath their wipers.

“That’s cute,” I’d say as D maneuvered his truck around oncoming traffic for the quick u-turn.

Meanwhile, I analyzed the encounter’s Destiny Quotient: (Likelihood of seeing the car) X (“Good feeling” ) X (Car’s Practicality)

I frequented my local craigslist. I lost track of the people I’d contacted, left messages with, and the people I’d yet to call at all. I found the perfect car, my car—the price was right, the mileage, the color, the make, all of it was sublimely perfect—but it was located seven states away. In Iowa.

“What exactly are you looking for?” D says over coffee one morning.

Yikes. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if there was some objective right answer or if it was okay to want a car because the headlights looked cool.

“There’s no right answer,” D said. I’d credit him with reading my mind had my bewildered insecurity not been so plastic against my face.

The truth was, I felt lost in this world of used automobiles. I was a stranger in a foreign mechanical land with foreign customs, values and an unfamiliar tongue. I didn’t know my Toyota from my Mitsubishi, my coolant from my transmission fluid. I assumed everyone else involved knew more than I did, but I tried not to let on. It was all right to toy with the persona of helplessness, but to surrender to the persona was a different story.

What was I looking for? I started my hypothetical want ad with obvious generalities like, “I want a car that runs … I also don’t want it to be ugly,” I added. I would later learn how fiercely relentless the beholder’s eye can be, when D squealed his breaks in front of a small, cherry red and menacingly sporty convertible.

“You’d look great in this beauty! What a cute car!”

He was so enthusiastic, I had to hide my horror out the passenger window while mumbling into my hand, “I don’t know…Is it practical?...”

Because I needed a car so desperately, I did not dare ask for more, but I hoped. I hoped for a sun roof and a cd player and automatic locks and power steering.

I hoped to find a car with its original owner. Finding a single-owner used car is like finding a rainbow-winged unicorn. These vehicle gems promise minimal baggage due to consistent treatment and care. For years, not only has the same foot pressed its pedals but the same mechanic’s (I imagine) loving hands caressed underneath its hood.

But most of the used cars I found did not offer this luxury. Most had been through at least four or five households, four or five driving techniques and oil changing rhythms. Who knows how many fly-by-night mechanics had poked their filthy fingers through its innards--replacing parts, removing parts, adding parts? It all just made my stomach turn.

Because most vehicles come with history, the test drive was a necessary—although brief and sometimes misleading—opportunity to judge the car on its character and performance. It was a time to spend alone with the vehicle, to travel fast and slow, to test the break’s sensitivity and the steering wheel’s agility. It was a time to feel for the car’s edges, to look for obvious malfunctions or obtrusive red flags.

The more test drives I took, the more paranoid I got. I ran my finger over a small ding in the windshield and anticipated the spider web crack that would inevitably follow. I found a cigarette burn in a seat and imagined what other invisible horrors inflicted on the poor thing.

“The car’s ten years old. What do you expect?” D said to me after I turned down a car because the body rattled a little too loudly while going over a bump.

He was right. It had been two months. I had looked at over fifty cars. In some ways, the search for a vehicle’s flaws had replaced my search for a vehicle.

“But what if I pick the wrong one?” I said.

I was addicted to used car shopping--to the thrill of discovery, conquest, possibility, and the crushing defeat when the car I initially loved turned out to be incompatible or unworthy. I felt ashamed. D laughed.

I found a car not too long after that. A ’96 Volkswagen Gulf with 144,000 miles and great gas mileage. A transmission mechanic sold the car to me and although his body language reeked of scam, I bought the car anyway, because I liked it and it was cute and it had a sun roof. He wanted $2500 for it and I offered him $2000. He took it. There wasn’t much bartering. I told him 2K was all I had.

D hugged me and said, “Drive her delicately. At least until you get used to one another.”

I spent the three hour drive home trying not to analyze every odd and unfamiliar sound the car made. With twenty miles to go, I glanced at my speedometer to find the display arrow spinning like a science fiction clock traveling backwards through time. 90 MPG! 100 MPG! 0 MPG! 10 MPG! I was driving at a steady, highway pace. I observed my dysfunctional speedometer for several miles before settling into a reaction.

I opened my sunroof.