Happy Little Trees

I love my jeep. I bought it because I knew that years would pass, and I would always like driving it. A jeep only gets sweeter with time.

But something has happened in our relationship that I didn’t predict. My jeep has gotten very expensive to drive. My tires are a little oversized (I didn’t pimp it out myself, it was used when I bought it, and came that way), which adds to the problem. I calculate that in the city, which is sadly where my jeep has to do much of its roaming, I probably get about 12 miles per gallon. Due to traffic, sometimes, I get less.

For the past several weeks, I’ve done all types of calculations looking at various reliability and mpg ratings for smaller cars, and I’ve figured up that I would probably save money per month buying a used car, rather than keep driving my jeep.

When I start to think about what car I would buy, it makes me miss my jeep already. I picture myself going to the parking lot, and getting into a little shiny box of a car with 6 inch wheels, and it isn’t appealing.

An alternative plan I’m toying with, is sending it to live with my mother. She gets to drive through the country side more than me, and has a house renovation project going on, so the extra storage and hauling capacity that the jeep could offer her would be a help.

I always thought that my jeep could be passed down to my kids. They could use it to learn to drive out on the farm, kind of like a lot of my friends learned to drive on their grandpa’s old Ford out in the field. Where do I get ideas like this? I think I’m trapped in between city-thinking and country-thinking. I’m a white collared worked with a bit of a redneck wring around the collar.

I'm waiting a few months to save some money (and pour some more into my jeep) before I make the official decision. And I'm keeping my eyes opened for old Corollas and Civics--trying to warm up to the little, shiny tin cans. Maybe I'll just imagine my Corolla with monster tires, mudflaps, and a horn that plays Dixie, and I'll feel better about it. Aw, geez, somebody get this girl some chaw to wise her up! Kidding. Really. Just kidding.