I have just recently passed my driving test on my third attempt (not that it was my fault I failed my first two tests you understand) and I am now looking forward to buying my first car.
When I say ‘buy’ what I actually mean is look for one and then ask my parents to buy it for me. I know that I will be able to get something reasonable because they want me to be safe, not driving around in a 20 year old heap of junk that could fall apart at any given moment.
I have seen the look on my parent’s faces when they see my friends rock up the drive in their bruised bangers, and I know it was a look to be exploited. Of course I realize how lucky I am to have parents who can afford to buy me a car whilst many of my friends worked hard to be able to afford their four (and sometimes three) wheels.
I remember broaching the subject of two wheels with my mother and watching her turn white. I was explaining how motorbikes were not as expensive and that I had been thinking of buying one. After all, I said, it can’t be that hard to get a motorbike license after learning to drive a car!
Horrified, she told me that people who worked in hospitals had a nickname for those who rode motorbikes, and it was ‘organ donors’. That put me off quickly but I do believe it had the effect I was looking for. They agreed to get me a car pretty soon after that, so here I am now trawling online car dealerships and the local paper looking for suitable rides.
I haven’t got off completely scott free. My father has insisted that I pay for my own tax and car insurance. I guess it was as his own special form of insurance against me choosing anything too flashy. Dad is a hard man to fool.
Now I have the problem of finding a car that I like and making sure that it’s not going to totally blow my budget financially. I am a student so before you ‘tut tut’ at me it’s not as if I have a steady income that I am greedily stashing away. Also, before you tell me I should be getting the bus at my age then I ask you, with a bus to the local town around twice a day could you cope? Probably not!
I have vowed to keep my car clean once I finally get my hands on one. No empty packets of smelly McDonalds or screwed up parking tickets for me. I have already found the perfect leather CD case and mini vacuum cleaner. I bought them at the supermarket yesterday along with a short aux cable so that I can listen to my ipod on the in car stereo system. Ok, I’m probably getting ahead of myself a bit but these boots were not made for walking. More like pushing an accelerator.