Our New Showroom

I may have mentioned that we sold the VW. Or maybe I haven’t mentioned it. I sometimes get confused between what I say publicly on Facebook compared to my blog. It’s hard to keep track of my virtual life sometimes. Anyway, I know I announced on Facebook that my Christmas wish came true and some poor soul agreed to buy the VW. It was such an enormous sense of relief to get rid of that thing and it makes me laugh to think back to Karlo’s feelings after he donated the barely-running, problem riddled Passat. He swore that he would NEVER buy another VW because of his previous track record of endless problems with them. But then we decided to move far from civilization and his truck got about 14 miles to the gallon. We really needed an all-purpose doggie mobile that was good on gas. Enter the VW TDI diesel. As much as we didn’t want to get a VW, they are really the only choice if you want a diesel so we broke down and went against Karlo’s better judgment. A mistake. But it’s gone now so we can breathe easy.

Then two days later my beloved Mini breaks. We brought it to a local shop this week who reported back that they can’t fix it. They called the BMW dealership for advice and were told that it’s way too tricky of a job and will likely take 7-9 hours of labor to fix. That amount of labor time at a BMW dealership is scaring me to death. I don’t even want to discuss. Next subject.

Knowing that we were selling the VW Karlo started his hunt for a replacement vehicle. He went round and round, changing his mind daily. Should we really keep 3 cars? Wouldn’t it make more sense to sell the VW and the Jeep and get one all-purpose car, big enough for two dogs and with 4-wheel drive? We researched all sorts of SUVs and when he finally made his decision to buy an Audi I nearly choked. For years I’ve been eying the Audis and every time I did Karlo reminded me that they are just glorified VWs and he was completely against them. What was he thinking? When the dealer handed over the car key I recognized the key-thingy as an exact replica of a VW key. I pushed it into Karlo face and said, “Do you see this? You KNOW you’re buying a VW, right?” Karlo’s response was, “When the German factory makes a good car they slap an Audi logo on the grill. When they make a bad car they slap a VW logo on the grill.”

So now we supposedly have a ‘good’ car. So good, in fact, that it may never leave the showroom which is now our garage. The car was completely detailed when we picked it up on Monday, but that didn’t stop Karlo from washing it as soon as we got home. We’ve been driving the Jeep, which barely has heat, all week. My feet have been blocks of ice during our work commute and two days ago the driver’s door froze forcing Karlo to hold the door closed, steer the vehicle, and shift gears all at the same time. I just sit in the passengers seat shaking my head. We could be riding in around in total luxury instead. What good is a good car if you never drive it?