Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - A new car is a red flag to Visigoths

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Brooks Peterson

Monday, June 4, 2001
A new car is a red flag to Visigoths

I had been dreading it so long that when it finally happened it came as a relief. Sort of. What it was, was the first ding in our new car. (Finally got around to buying one - our first since 1985. We don't rush these things.)
   Anyone who's bought a new vehicle will know what I'm talking about. Even as you rejoice in the bold, wind-cleaving lines, the glittering chrome accents, the sublime confluence of hood and front fascia, there is always this unpleasant little voice nattering away somewhere in the nether regions of your consciousness:
   "Enjoy it while it lasts, pal. First time you take this baby to the supermarket, some bozo is gonna t-bone it with a shopping cart at about 75 mph."
   And of course the little voice is always right.
   Since, as noted, we had been out of the new-car market for a long time, we had not been troubled with this particular worry. Granted, there were other worries to keep us occupied as our fleet aged . . . and aged . . . and aged. Would the A/C on our, ah, mature Bimmer make it through another South Texas summer? With both the tachometer and speedo misbehaving on our thoroughbred British sporting machine, was there any way I could estimate my speed?
   But coping with - and, ideally, staying ahead of - such worries is a vastly different proposition from the dread that seizes your heart each time you take the new vehicle out of its safe harbor of your driveway. As you venture forth, you confront a world populated by yahoos and yokels whose sole aim in life seems to be ensuring that nobody - repeat: nooooo-body - will be permitted to luxuriate in the heady experience of driving a glittering, pristine automobile.
   Distance parking
   Of course, you try to take precautions. Everybody does (except, perhaps, for those who have a brother-in-law with a first-class paint and body shop). You park way at the end of the queue in hopes that no one will park next to you. Some even resort to fabric car covers, reasoning that the huns will seek easier prey.
   Fat chance. Any such precaution is a red flag waved in the faces of these clowns. You can delay the reckoning, but it'll come: The door-dingers, the key-wielders, the shopping-cart commandos are out there . . . and they know where you park.
   Now, granted, there is a certain pecking order in such affairs. The more modest your vehicle, the longer it will take the Visigoths to target it. If you're driving something genuinely elegant - a Jaguar XKR, say, or a high-line Mercedes or BMW - you may want to post guards.
   Oh, and if you should be one of the fortunate few to own a genuine piece of six-figure automotive exotica - a Ferrari, say, or a Lamborghini, Porsche GT2, or a '30s-vintage Duesenberg - you shouldn't even think of taking it onto a public thoroughfare unless you have a couple of armored Suburbans - filled with former Navy SEALs - covering your front and rear.
   Most of us, of course, don't have the luxury of considering our vehicles as objets d'art. Like it or not, we have to get out there and mix it up with the neighbors.
   Tell-tale clue: a smear of paint
   In our case, we had a pretty good run. We got through about six months before we picked up the first visible scar - a little abrasion you wouldn't even notice if you weren't looking for it. And within the last couple of weeks, another zit has cropped up - this one with some tell-tale blue paint adhering to it. (Quick! Put me through to the police lab!)
   As you can imagine, we're not pleased by this revoltin' development, but it does bring with it a faint sense of liberation.
   The thugs can now turn their attention elsewhere, and we no longer have to hike three-quarters of a mile to get groceries . . . until, of course, the time comes (a few years hence) when we get a new paint job, whereupon the whole process, as stylized and as inevitable as a kabuki play, will act itself out all over again.



Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com

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