nice try, acura. but no dice

we are car snobs. well, let me just speak for myself: i am a car snob. there are certain brands of car i would never in-a-million-years buy. and they are called american.

i love my country. i don't even travel outside of it. but until they can make a kick-ass car that can get to 200k miles without falling to pieces, i am not impressed. honda and toyota have always been my tops. although my first car, a toyota starlet, was no great gem.

i was 16. and i desperately wanted this starlet that our neighbors were selling. as i recall, it was $3,000. my parents made a deal with me: we'd get it, but i had to pay them back for half. DEAL. SOLD. GIVE ME THE KEY. i paid $100 a month for 15 months. and it was worth every dollar of freedom.

this poor starlet broke down so much that my parents decided they had to buy me a new car. a NEW car. these words are like sparkling diamonds to a college kid. i was taken to get a bottom-of-the-line toyota. we walked out with a celica that had pop-up headlights. my dad was mad. he had been outnumbered two-to-one by determined women. he never had a chance.

i loved the celica. there were certain conditions to me getting it, one of which i remember was that no one besides me was ever to have their rear end in the driver's seat. again, sorry, dad. it was a fun, fast, awesome car. and my college friends all thank you.

then, a few years later, i got a wild hair. i wanted a convertible. specifically, a volkswagen convertible. it is my personal belief that everyone should have a convertible once in their life. even my mother had one, for god's sake. and she doesn't like her hair to move. i went to the used, pre-owned office at volkswagen and bargained a monthly payment i could meet on two part-time jobs. and i drove out, top down, happy as all get-out.



and that, my friends, was a fun car. many was the night i would pop in a cassette and just drive with the top down. one of the small, great joys in life.

then comes marriage. we need a real car. a prepare-for-kids car. we go to acura and walk out with what i feel is a rolls royce. it was an integra. that was 1997. we are still driving that car. it has over 150k miles. do you think i love it? i love it. it's never given us any problems. we're going to drive it until it falls apart. until i have to get out and pick up pieces of it off the street. and even then, if they can be glued on, we will keep it.

our other car is an acura mdx. that was a pricey buy. hoo baby, pricey. but it was either that or a minivan. i'm not a minivan kinda girl. and i needed something that could seat multitudes. because quite often, i am driving multitudes. of kids. it can seat 8 comfortably. and yes, there are times when i'd like to stop and dump out half of my passengers. but i don't. i just turn the music louder. but that's a whole other blog story. i am the car that all the kids want to go in. and that's what i wanted.

these are our two, beautiful-because-they're-paid-for acuras:



and last week, the little guy (the integra) needed some work. needed some love. and we gladly give him the love because he keeps us from buying a new car. a new used car. since dave ramsey's spirit is now in our life. never a new car. never again.

and do you know what the acura dealership gave us as a loaner? a brand spankin' new, fully loaded TL. it did not even have a key, that's how fancy it was. i had no idea how to turn it on. it had GPS. xm radio. you could talk out loud and someone or something would talk back to you. it freaked me the hell out. so david drove it....david -- fell in love. i told him to live vicariously for these few days because our sweet beater was coming back home to roost.

that loaner got driven to the moon and back. i just constantly saw it leaving. my 9-year-old figured the whole car out in, oh, five minutes. i could not even find a radio station. or the a/c controls. it had enough buttons to power a rocket launch.

and get this: when we got our paid-for, 11-year-old car back from the dealership, days and many dollars later, they had hung a "new car smell" air freshener from the rearview mirror. really, acura? do you think we are that easy?

because the woman in service told me a story i will never forget. god bless her. she told me of a customer that drives an '88 acura legend that has -- get this -- 530k miles on it. she has given me a new goal to strive for. and i love a challenge.

so nice try, acura. with your new car smell and your fancy talking car. but you know what i got? i have two reliable, paid-for cars.

i can't blame you for trying. but baby....no dice.