We have been searching far and wide for a second vehicle. It has been a definite struggle, for the past 18 months, to share one car. As it works out most days Monkey and I are home without transportation. It's not as if Mr. Egg and I haven't tried to procure another car, we have and we did. We drove up to Oregon about a year ago and purchased an '90 Jetta which took me back to my first car, Rhodey. She was a white 1988 sporty little Jetta and she was a tricky one. I bought her from an older guy at a used car dealership outside of Providence, RI. I was barely 19, working two jobs and attempting to scrape by.

On my birthday I came into some money which was a settlement from my childhood involving a dog attacking my face. It's cool, you can barely see the scars now. So I received my payout on my 19th year and I was tired of walking the 2 miles to each job day after day in the snow plus my cousin and I were planning a roadtrip home to New Orleans for Mardi Gras - I needed a car.

I set out on my search all the while my ex-girlfriend (who, for some reason, wasn't quite getting out of the picture) yelled at me to take someone who knew something about cars with me. I ignored her, of course. I approached it with one thing in mind: did the car look good? I don't mean "good" as in fancy and fully loaded. I mean good as in no dents, no rust, no tears in the seats, etc. I didn't want or need fancy. Just something that worked and didn't look like a piece of shit. I checked out a couple of cars and then found her. She was a manual. She had power nothing. A crappy stereo with not even a tape deck and speakers that crackled. But she looked good to me and I was sold. I did wonder about reliability but was hooked when the old salesman guy who reminded me of my Gramps looked me straight in the eye and said, "This is a good car, right here. I would buy it for my own granddaughter". Yeah, I know. But I was young and naive and blah blah blah. I drove her home.

The next evening, on my way home from work, she stalled at a red light. In the turning lane. Of a busy intersection. In the sleety winter rain. A nice guy helped me push her to the side of the road and she started up fine about 20 minutes later. And so it went, for the next 3 years she was an on again off again vehicle that I sunk thousands into without ever managing to fix that initial problem. She started sometimes, but not always. But she got me cross country a few times and helped me during times of my life when I never got myself into situations that 24 hours and a car couldn't get me out of. She finally gave out and is sitting to this day in my ex's yard in Louisiana, amongst a graveyard of other vehicles, growing moss. It's the South, folks. In the country, no less. Auto body part graveyards are a common occurrence in people's yards.

You would think that after having had such an experience with a Jetta, such an experience that every mechanic I went to told me that VW's were just temperamental cars that tended to have electrical issues, I would have steered clear? Well, you would think. But I did not. We drove 7 hours straight, round trip, to buy this Jetta and the second day - I kid you not - it wouldn't start. The battle began and we tried for a few months and backed off. We have tried intermittently to get the car running again but gave up when it became clear it was nothing more than a money pit. The car has been sitting on the top of our hill for the better part of the last several months.

And a couple of weeks ago we found a great car. A great one. Again, up in Oregon. We left Monkey with my dad for the day and drove the 4 hours to Medford to pick up the RAV4 we'd been coveting for months. It had popped up on craigslist for the right price and we jumped on it. Needless to say it didn't work out, I won't get into the details because I'm still pissed off and bitter. I will say that the owner of that car has some bad fucking karma coming her way.

And now, with Mr. Egg's new work schedule, it's become near impossible to share the car. He's working in two different towns, half day in each, and it would not make any sense for me to drive him around all day, just so I could have the car. So we've been searching. Every day. The problem is the lack of vehicles up here and what they do have tends to be extremely overpriced, there just isn't the competition to keep things low. I will say that we only are looking to buy from private parties, dealerships make no sense to me. We're not looking for anything less than 10 years old and personally I think spending more than a few thousand dollars on a car is insane. I'm not knocking those who want newer, more reliable vehicles, it's just a different mindset.

Mr. Egg had his mom and step-father checking out cars down in the Bay Area, we discussed driving down for a weekend if the right vehicle presented itself. Mr. Egg's mom emailed him yesterday morning with this news: her neighbor was going to give us, yes give as in completely free, their '97 minivan with just over 100,000 miles. He tells me this over IM. I freeze. I reply, "ur joking?" He says he's not. My mind is racing. Oh. My. God. Is this happening? Seriously? A minivan? A minivan?! But it's a free vehicle! With not too many miles! Everything sort of slowed for a second as my head was spinning. I realize we need a second car and it's free and it's just a vehicle. But....I am not a minivan kind of person. Maybe that sounds ridiculous and stupid but it's true. It basically represents everything that I despise about the American way of life.

The gas mileage kinda sucks, granted it is not better on our current car - a 16 year old Volvo wagon. But beyond that there is a certain stigma that comes along with driving a minivan, the typical ride for a suburbanite shuttling kids to and from this activity or that. That is not who I am. I feel that I struggle enough with motherhood, in so far as how it changes me and consumes certain aspects of my existence, and to have to drive a minivan just compounds it in this tangible way for the world to see. As though it says, "Here I am, a MOM."

I fully understand I'm not being very rational about this, it's simply my emotion screaming speaking. I asked Mr. Egg if he would mind driving the van, if it's just about having a reliable vehicle to get him to and from work and he doesn't have any sort of issues with it, why not? I can drive the Volvo and everyone is happy. He hasn't given any sort of definitive answer yet. First he agreed then changed his mind and now I'm leaving it alone. I think part of him wants me to drive it because he wants me to push past these issues I'm having, which to him seem "shallow". And on the surface, I get that. I realize how spoiled it is of me to even have the option of caring about the vehicle I drive. A car is a car, after all, and I should be happy to have one, period. Right?

So I'm attempting to pull my head out of my ass and just be freaking grateful that there is some kind soul who wants to give us a vehicle out of the goodness of their heart (which definitely threw me, how many people do things like that? not enough, that's for sure). And if it plays out that I do end up driving it I should be grateful that I have a safe and reliable car to drive my daughter around in so we can get out of the house and go run around the beach or the forest. It is just a car, after all. Right? Right.