All Growns Up

I have no idea why I was in such a hurry to grow up. Being an adult is no fun. I am tired of being responsible and dealing with issues - I'm especially tired of dealing with everything by myself. Yesterday I made the very adult decision to trade in my car for a smaller, more efficient, cheaper and automatic car. I loved my car. Suzy, a Nissan Altima SE-R in fire engine red was an awesome car. I had planned on keeping that car for quite some time. However, with my current job, I drive through the downtown area and hit traffic twice a day. Driving a stick shift in heavy traffic gets old really quick. Also, Suzy was classified technically as a sports car...therefore, my insurance was pretty high. She barely fit in my garage and the side mirrors were the kind that don't pop in and out, so if you hit one - say trying to get close to the drive-up ATM, you had to replace it for quite a nice sum of money, we're talking a couple hundred dollars. Also, she didn't do so well in winter weather. Last winter, we got a lot of snow. I was able to work from home quite a bit, so it didn't really matter. Except for the time I had to fly out of town and got stuck on my driveway because we got 3 inches of ice on top of snow. I doubt that I will be allowed to work from home this year, so I was a bit nervous thinking about driving in snow in heavy traffic. Those are the reasons I traded in my Suzy. She was my first new car EVER. I went all out, got every bell and whistle I could. I will miss my heated seats and my 6 CD changer. Sniff...

Now I have Martha, a Honda Civic EX also in red (not by design - it was the only EX they had at the dealership and I wasn't being picky on the color). Martha is a fine car. I am happy she is smaller - my garage has a lot more room. I am happy she is an automatic. There are some interesting nit-picks I'm not happy about: I had to pay to upgrade the rearview mirror to the kind that you don't get blinded by the car behind you at night. The drivers side visor doesn't have a built in garage door opener. Which I didn't even think about until I was about to turn into my driveway with Martha and flipped down the visor (out of habit) to open the garage door only to realize, crap, there is no opener and I have no idea where the real garage door opener is...as well as I didn't have my house keys on me (I know, I'm an idiot). Luckily my SiL's parents were home and they had my keys.

So, I did the right thing. It was the decision I needed to make and should have made. But I will miss Suzy. I loved that car. My first new car ever. It's not fun being an adult.