MINE :-)

It was a Buick.

It was white.

I expressed doubts to the manager recommending it to me; I dislike vehicles with the turn radius of a beached whale, or even a dolphin. I had no interest in Buicks and a sort of rabid distaste for white cars. He assured me it was a Century, and thus smaller than the model I was probably thinking of. But it was within my price range, unlike the vehicle that I had just finished not buying, so I figured it was worth looking at, anyhow. So Daddy and I hopped into a something-or-other with the salesman to go see it at the other lot.

I'd spent that whole day car shopping (well, after sleeping in, feeding the cat, and on either side of eating at my favorite steak place and buying a CD at my favorite Bible book store!). The day was a trifle windy, but warm, so much warmer than some of those miserable car-shopping days earlier this year. Even when the dust blew and the grit got between my teeth, I wasn't actually cold, and it was wonderful. We sat on the curb at K-Bob's, sunning ourselves while we waited for the rest of the fam to arrive.

Granddad knows everybody in two counties, I swear. He made friends with one salesman whose uncle he'd helped bury out at Kenna. He went to the place run by his good buddy's son-in-law, was referred to the son-in-law's business mentoree, and we drove over there. He had some kind of fun cars, including a teal PT Cruiser I absolutely fell in love with. It had the awesome retro dash and the cream ball-shaped gearshift that looked like something from a fifties kitchen. But we took it round the block and the engine was shuddering and stumbling like a spooked horse. "Well, that's fine, I guess, as long as it doesn't die," I said to myself, and about ten seconds later it gave up the ghost right there in the lane. I returned the spark of life to it temporarily and then it died again in the parking lot. So we decided perhaps that wasn't The One. No use beating a dead PT Cruiser. We tried out others, but that was the most memorable.

Right, so Daddy and the nice salesman and I drove up the Clovis highway and came round to the great white whale, parked toward the back. It was definitely white. Grr. It did look about the size of a space barge. Grr. And it had tinted windows. GRR. I whispered to Daddy, "It'd better have amazing handling."

Still, while we were there, I figured I may as well test-drive the thing. So I adjusted the seat, and found it rather comfortable. The tinted windows weren't really that dark from inside; I didn't feel like I'd gone back into the Cave. I pulled out of the lot--and it had perk and pep. Huh. It didn't feel like a whale. I got back into the lot and did these sweet little loopies. It wasn't quite a minnow like that Rio the other day, but it was agile; call it a koi goldfish.

Daddy and Granddad inspected it thoroughly. It was a 2002, but had been well taken care of. Granddad liked it because it had the heft of a real car. It appealed to me as a car of character and virtue, with a quiet charm not immediately obvious to the opinionated shopper, like one of those old-fashioned roses that looks slightly scraggy but grows tough as all-get-out and smells wonderful. And, to top it off, it came from the Court of Summer, found on one of the first days of summer I'd had yet this year.

So I bought it. It is mine, my own, my precious pearl without a spot of debt. :-)

I haven't yet named it; I couldn't come up with a name suitable to its Arthurian heritage and its own pleasant nature. Any suggestions?