It has been almost a full year since I started telling myself I was buying a fancy McCullough steam cleaner to make my car perfect, just like in those detailing videos I watch all the time. It looks so easy when those young men (who are probably healthy and strong) spend ten hours detailing a car, condensed to a thirty minute video. It isn't so easy in real life, detailing a car not in a climate controlled garage, with all the tools and chemicals spread out on counters, pieces of the car removed and set on work tables for easy access, but rather on an icy driveway, hoping that you remembered to bring out everything you needed, trying to work in the blinding glare of the setting sun, hoping to finish before it got really cold outside. I put in a solid two hours, before the water level in the steam cleaner got low, and my energy even lower. I can't remember the last time I spent two whole hours doing anything, much less twisting and reaching in every part of my tiny car, using first steam, then leather cleaner, then UV protectant. I tell you, if my buddy doesn't ooh and aah when I pick her up for Rotary tomorrow, my spirit will be crushed.
I'm still hoping all of this will be worth it, that Mr S-P will agree that getting a larger vehicle able to hold two baby seats and full-size adults at the same time will be the best use of our profit from finally selling the house in New Mexico. Used cars are fetching ridiculously good prices these days, and I've kept this one in the best shape I could, given my limitations. I've kept it clean--not pristine, but not like the stinky disasters in those videos I watch. I have an unlimited use membership at the drive through car wash, and I use it often (sometimes just for a mood lifter, when the car isn't even that dirty, or to cool it off when it's really hot in the summer). I'm not exactly out there using a clay bar on it, or polishing it with a power drill pad, but still, I'm trying to do right by it. It's nine years old, and I just rolled over 80 thousand miles on the way home from Costco on Saturday. Surely as a trade in, I have done all a person could do to retain value.
I figure I have about three weeks left to really make my case that it is time for a new car. The sale will be final in mid-February. What remains of that mortgage will be paid off, and the remainder will be there, tempting him to do all sorts of naughty things. (Yes, I actually spoke the words, "We are NOT buying a plane!!") I'll have to make sure the grandbaby and a half are in his field of vision a lot that week, so he remembers what the priorities are.
I ought to have taken pictures of the car before I came inside. I was so tired, though. Instead, I got yet more proof that we finally figured out proper placement of the cat bed, so that it actually gets used now. Only took us seven months. (Two pictures, taken a day apart.)
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