I may as well get myself a pink
bicycle with glitter handlebar streamers and a Barbie decal on the front fork.
I mean, why not? Any latent masculinity I still possess in these, my waning
years, is being rapidly scraped away by Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori
Frankforter).
She’s not doing it to be mean or
because she wants to emasculate me. At least, I don’t think that’s why she’s doing it. But it’s happening and I feel
powerless to stop it.
See, she doesn’t get that a man
(I used to consider myself one) defines himself in large part by what he
drives. During my 30s, I drove, whenever possible, little red sports cars. I
always felt cool, hip and – dare I say it – sexy. I was, in actuality, none of
these things, but the car helped me fool myself into thinking I was.
By the time I hit 40 I had moved
out into the sticks. I bought a pickup truck to reflect this geographical
change. My big, ol’ Ford made me feel like a real man, someone who could maybe rope a cow or brand a chicken or
whatever the hell it is cowboys do when they’re not filming cigarette
commercials.
Again, I couldn’t actually do any cowboy stuff, but the truck made
me feel that, in a pinch, I could at least give it a try.
Then I turned 50 and the midlife
crises hit pretty hard, even though my wife at the time was around 20 years my
junior. This should have been enough to ease me over the midlife “hump,” but
apparently, I needed more. I bought another red sports car. Then a grey sports
car. Then a black sports car. Then another red one.
Eventually, I figured out I was
gonna be old no matter what (or how many) sports cars I drove. I gave up and
bought a van because by this time I was married to a woman closer to my own age
and figured I no longer needed to pretend to be cool.
The van felt tragically nerdy,
but, being a geezer, I didn’t really care all that much.
If the van made a statement at
all, that statement was, “Eh. Could be worse.”
When the van finally died, I got
another red “sporty” car, but nothing that could by the furthest reaches of the
imagination be mistaken for a “chick magnet.” Just sort of a pathetic old guy’s
attempt at maintaining some thin veneer of cool. It was thin indeed, though by
this time I was not.
I drove that up until a year ago
or so. That’s when Mrs. T (fLF) decided she no longer wanted to drive the white
VW Bug she’d purchased just a few months earlier. She wanted me to take it so she could buy something
bigger. She has a little shop where she sells art and stuff and she needed
something she could use to haul stuff in.
Now, I don’t want to be any more
sexist than absolutely necessary here, but a Bug – particularly a white one –
is a pretty girly car. But I love Mrs. T (fLF) and want her to be happy. I took
the Bug and she bought some SUV-ish monstrosity.
This bloated road-yacht she drove
for about two months. Then she decided it was too big. So she traded it in and
bought another Bug, this time a convertible. She also bought a little trailer
so she could still move stuff to and from her shop.
Last week she mentioned how much
she missed her old white Bug, the one I’ve been driving for the past year or
so.
“I’ll trade with you, I guess,” I
said. “If you want.” I figured one girly car is pretty much like any other.
I was wrong. I hadn’t previously
noticed, but Mrs. T (fLF) has for the past year or so been “customizing” her
convertible Bug. When we traded, I took possession of a car with a built-in
flower vase, floral pattern seat covers, a big flower decal over the gas tank
cover, and a window sticker of Tweetie-Pie of Looney Tunes fame delivering the
warning, “I’m no angel!” on the rear window.
This car could not be girlier if
it were wearing a hula skirt, frosted pink lipstick and had a gas tank filled
with estrogen.
Given a few days of warm weather
(not likely for another few months) I could probably turn this Fem-mobile into
a slightly less girly version of itself. But for now, it’s too cold to do
anything about it.
I just hope I have enough
manliness left to last me until spring.
(616) 730-1414
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