Spiff is dead.

Long live Spiff!

My old 1992 Geo Metro had been on its last wheels for some time. The engine was still in good shape, true, but the brakes were starting to get a bit rough, the suspension was rocky and made a continuous "miffed mouse" sort of squeaking noise which really disturbed me (especially as it was audible even when I was driving 70 MPH down I-5), and the electrical system, never perfect to begin with, was developing a few shorts that were starting to irritate me. And, one day last week, while driving to work, the engine just stopped. The "Maintenance Required" light flashed, and all of a sudden… Nothing. The car was still moving under its momentum, the electrical system was still functioning, but the engine had simply ceased to be a factor. I pulled over to the side of the road, worried that it might have seized up on me or something, but when I turned the ignition key, the engine started up again just fine. I gave it no more serious thought for the rest of the day, but informed Jennifer once I got to work and had Instant Messenger going that it might be time to consider buying a new car. So that evening, we went to several different dealerships, test drove a few different cars, and we both fell in love with the dark green 2001 Honda Accord LX. After a few hours spent hammering out financial details, we drove home after midnight that night in our new car, followed by the salesman from the Honda dealership who had to come to our house to pick up the title to the Geo.

Spiff II is the first new car I’ve ever owned. Every other car in my life that I’ve ever had has been at least six years old when I purchased it. My old Datsun pick up truck (remember Datsun? They turned into Nissan at some point when someone realized that Datsun was a dirty word in Japanese, or something like that) was nearly ten years old when my parents gave it to me; it was a canary yellow truck with a white and brown camper shell and two front fenders that had, through various accidents and misfortunes, been replaced with primer-black ones. It looked like a big bumblebee. I named this truck Nero, after my uncle’s old basset hound. When he asked me, "Why Nero?", I told my uncle that it was because the truck’s acceleration, like the dog’s, was iffy. "It’s not so much the acceleration that’s a problem with the dog," my uncle replied; "it’s getting him to stop once he does get moving." So I said, "Yep, and the truck’s brakes aren’t that good either."

When Nero died the death of a thousand head cracks on I-80 on the way to Fairfield, my parents bought me my second car: a 1981 Honda Accord hatchback. This thing was tiny. I named it Emmet MacNero, because it was the color of Emmet’s Irish Creme, and was the "son" of Nero. I drove that Honda into the ground; for the last two years of its life with me, it was not allowed to drive on the highways, because its CV joints were shot to hell and I was never able to afford replacing them. I finally got sick of a car that wasn’t really street-legal, so I eventually was able, somehow, to get a car loan from my bank, and I bought Spiff. I got $250 trade-in value for Emmet. Which was much more than I actually god for Spiff.

Jennifer’s family has a tradition of naming vehicles, and each vehicle that the owner has gets the same name; Jennifer has Lucy, and each car she has even owned has been called Lucy. I can’t really bring myself to use the same naming convention with regards to my cars, but I did like the name Spiff — named after Spaceman Spiff, Calvin’s alter-ego in Calvin and Hobbes, the great comic strip of all time. So I decided that this new Honda is Spiff II.

I’m not really into cars or driving. I can recognize a Porsche on the road, as long as it’s clearly marked "Porsche" (otherwise, I’m liable to mistake it for a Camaro); I am quite capable of drooling over a 2001 Jaguar SLE; and I once drove a 1967 Karmenn Gia, which gave me quite a thrill. But cars just don’t do it for me. I know that calls my masculinity and possibly my sexual orientation into question, but it’s true, and I’m secure in it.

But I tell you… Driving this new Honda is a blast. Driving a car which responds to the gas pedal, which can take turns without shaking, which has an air conditioner, doors that open and windows that roll down, and can brake without protesting… It may be enough to make me think that perhaps driving can be fun, after all.