Up until about a year ago, I drove a fancy car with leather seats. It was quiet, smooth, and a huge drag on my conscience. In addition to being a bit hard on the gas, it was a Lexus. That opened me up to the “Oh, you drive a LEXUS” kind of thing. Maybe that was all in my head, but I never saw myself as the type of person who needed to drive that kind of car.
Except that it had a trunk, and I used to like to put my briefcase in the trunk. Which makes no sense because it is a longer walk to get back to the trunk. Four feet maybe, but still it was a longer walk. I felt like this made me the kind of person who did not have a whole lot of random crap flailing around in his car. I put my luggage where it belonged: in the trunk. The boot, if you will.
So when we traded in the Lexus for the car which my Sweet Lady now drives, I began to drive the Sube. This is the standard Sube which was issued to my Sweet Lady when she moved to Altamont in 1999. (I’m not sure if they still do that or if they have switched to Priuses [or is it Prii? {I’m never sure because I don’t know if “Prius” is Latin for something like “poots roses.”}]) So the Sube has got some age on her. This manifests itself in some ways like the natural dents and dings that come with age.
Or like the other day when a headlight went out. (One of the nice things about the Sube is that the headlights turn off when the car is off. I just leave the headlights on all the time now. It’s a safety thing. My Sweet Lady seems to think this contributed to the headlight going out. I think the car is 11 years old.) Back in the Lexus days — the salad days as they are called — I had occasion to change a headlight bulb. It was harder than you might think, but I did it. So I felt pretty confident in doing it again. On the Sube, it was easy. I also had some left over wonder gu that makes your headlight covers all shiny and clear. Ever seen those cars with the sad looking headlights? the ones that look like they have cataracts? That’s where the Sube was headed before the wonder gu.
So I did all that work on the headlights and I was feeling pretty good. This morning, therefore, I quickly disassembled a utility knife and used the blade to scrape the dried bird poo off of the passenger side windows. You call this a small thing, but I had been riding around for weeks with this stuff on my windows feeling bad because I had dried bird poo on my windows. I scraped it off. It was easy.
So after I picked Tallulah up from the Dub with afternoon, we went over to Sube home base. One of the things I had brought over from the Lexus days — the salad days as they are called — was my habit of putting things in the trunk. The boot, if you will. Except I don’t really have a boot because the Sube is a station wagon. What I do have is a little retractable cover that you pull out to hide the cargo in the cargo area. When extended, the ends of the cover — left and right — rest in two little plastic notches. (Not to be confused with your notcha.)
Very soon after I got the Sube, the notches broke, first the left and then the right. It’s been almost a year, and I have been feeling ashamed of riding around with my cargo exposed. Trying to be humble has nothing to do with being tacky. So we went to the Sube homebase to see if we could buy some replacement notches. They cost a total of $5. I put them in in all of 5 minutes. It was easy.
I feel great. The cargo is now modestly tucked away in the boot. There is no dried bird poo on the windows. The headlights are clear and both of them work. (I replaced both headlight because the other one was bound to go soon.) Plus, I got a seat cover for the seat that’s got pretty much all the fabric worn out. I used to think that people who used the phrase “taking care of myself” meant they were eating big pieces of chocolate cake while the peasants were starving. I still think this is true for some people, but I also understand that I sometimes ignore doing small things that will basically only benefit me while trying to do “big important things” for other people. The truth is that when I do the small thing, I’m better prepared to do the big things too. Because I’ve got my briefcase in my boot.