A "new" old lady Buick

I've mentioned a number of times that my "old lady Buick" is dying a slow death.  Gradually things quit working that are too expensive to fix the right way, so Dick either rigs some kind of fix (the heat/AC controls), or we just do without that feature (cruise control).  A few weeks ago I began praying that a car we can afford would come across our path.  Of course, I preferred that someone would give us one (haha!), but I didn't make that stipulation!  Last week Dick was working on another old lady Buick and found out that the woman who had owned it had died recently, and her son was getting it ready to sell.  It was a few years newer than mine (still older than most people drive) and in much better condition.  We bought that car yesterday.  Now I will be able to control the heat and AC the right way, I will have cruise control, shifting on the floor instead of the column (better for my shoulder), and I can open that sun roof on a sunny day!  Here are the old and the "new".  Today I will give the dear old one a thorough vacuuming for the prospective buyers that Dick's boss already has lined up for it.  

 

But, oh dear!  I have gotten used to looking for that black vinyl roof in a parking lot.  I'm afraid there may be more dark green cars than silver-gray/black-roofed ones.  I have been known to get a little mixed up in the car recognition department.  Here's an old story from my Story Saturday files.  My newer readers may not have heard this one before.

 

OUR "NEW" CAR

As we raised our many children the most practical means of transportation was big Ford vans, which we would drive for many years. As the children became drivers we added VW Rabbits to our driveway. It was never hard to find our vehicles in a parking lot, because they didn't look like anybody else's.

That is, until 1995 when we got a gray Mercury Sable which looked amazingly like many other cars on the road. I was not known to be much of a car noticer, so I was in for a challenge!

One particular Saturday morning Dick and I had been to a doctor appointment and got finished just before twelve noon. I wanted to to go to the bank before they closed so we hurried to the nearest Fulton Bank which was in a little K-Mart strip mall. He pulled up to the curb in front of the bank, I jumped out and made a mad rush for the door, getting inside the door just before they locked it.

A few minutes later I came out of the bank and quickly jumped into the car that was at the curb where Dick had let me out. I was completely SHOCKED as I heard a strange man's voice saying, "Wrong car, Hon!"

"Oh my goodness, I am SO SORRY!" I exclaimed profusely as I even more quickly jumped back out of that car without as much as a glance at the man who had spoken. I turned around and saw Dick sitting in our car in a parking space facing the bank, with the BIGGEST grin in town. He had watched the whole thing with greatest amusement. I sheepishly walked over and got into our car, still without looking at the man in the wrong car. Dick told me it was an older man who had probably enjoyed having a younger woman hopping into his car! (I hate to admit it, but the wrong car was not a Mercury Sable; in fact, it wasn't even gray - it was brown.)