Pink

My car is a Volkswagen Beetle. Pink. It's her color and her name. For years, I would say it would be great to have a pink Beetle. Or a purple one. I would imagine buying one in one of the standard colors and having it painted. It isn't an uncommon fantasy for women, I have discovered.

For years, I drove a reliable Toyota Camry. They are great cars and mine was wonderful. One day I was thinking about how the Camry was thirteen, kind of reaching that point where things start to go wrong. Just out of curiosity, I went to autotrader.com and looked up Beetles. I put in my price range and my zip code, nothing else in the search field. I was just exploring what I could get for what I wanted to pay. Soon I had the result of my search. Guess who popped up first? You are probably already ahead of me here. Pink. A Beetle that was ALREADY pink. Wow. What are the chances? She was ridiculously overpriced. I saw that when I Kelley Blue Booked a Beetle and then looked into the price of custom paint. Even with her gorgeous color, the asking price was way too much. But still...

The next morning, I started up the Camry and the check engine light came on and stayed on. Now you and I both know a check engine light can mean very little, and in this case I just took it to my mechanic and he cleared it for me. But it seemed strangely coincidental. It could mean nothing, but still...

I called Pink's owner, and we arranged a meeting. Love at first sight, no doubt about it. We talked a little bit about price. My mechanic checked Pink out and she got a clean bill of health. Some people like to say that VW's are expensive to maintain and repair, and that it's hard to find someone to work on them. That is because they are German cars, and not everyone knows how to work on German cars. My mechanic and Pink seemed to get along just fine. I decided on a fair price that I was willing to pay, and as we negotiated, Pink's owner and I arrived at a number we could both live with. Pink has been mine now for over a year. She has a personality all her own. She takes me where I want to go.

A couple of weeks ago, a little girl, maybe age 4 or 5, was in the grocery store parking lot with her mom and they exclaimed over the wonderfulness and wonderfilledness of Pink. Then the little girl put her hands on her hips, looked at me with a most serious expression and said, "Cars don't come in pink." Her mom explained to her that no they don't, you have to have them specially painted.

Cars don't come in pink. No. They don't. But sometimes they do.

Susan