thunk it

who would’ve thunk it?
me behind a wagon’s wheel
even before kids!

[7:25 AM]
No, I’ve not gone AWOL again. It’s just been somewhat hectic here in the offline world.

As I mentioned in unintended kisses, I was recently in a car accident. While I myself wasn’t hurt, the Kiapet took a fatal blow, and was recently (a week and a half ago) declared a total loss by the offender’s insurance company. This resulted in a rather hectic and hurried search for a new car to replace my daily workhorse, something that could put up with the 85-90 miles I put daily on a vehicle in the going to and from work.

We’d (that would be Ayeka and myself) already decided that I probably needed a “bigger” car. The Kiapet had been a 1999 Kia Sportage 4×2, a mini-SUV (Texas had considered it a light truck, while Maryland considered it an SUV), and while I was more interested in the gas efficiency as prices have been rising, she was concerned about having a vehicle that could also double as a cargo vehicle. (This had actually been a discussion for a while, but more in the theoretical sense rather than the very real sense of needing to replace a car – we’d planned, honestly, to start looking next summer.)

The insurance company rented a car for me while we’d waited for the original estimates for repair to come in, and I’d been given a brand new Chevy HHR by Enterprise – a fairly nice “faux-SUV” that was really a wagon, designed by the same guy who did the PT Cruiser for Chrysler. All in all, it was nice if a bit boxy, and I’m not so certain about the grill… but it did get us thinking seriously about what we were looking for.

In the end, we found a PT Cruiser that fit the bill within our price range, a “linen gold metallic” 2005 Limited that seems to have more than enough pickup for my taste, gas efficiency to some extent, and enough storage room to placate Ayeka. We’ll have to see how it fares (and what we name it)…