Today on my way home from work, I passed an older beat up Honda Civic traveling down 9A in the slow lane, all four windows down and battle scars decorating it’s filthy exterior.
To give you some context, my previous car was a 1994 Honda Accord with so much bare metal showing you couldn’t tell if it was blue or metallic silver to begin with. And to make things even more interesting, the A/C didn’t work, which in Florida almost always results in death. You could definitely say I was feeling some sympathy for my friend in the Civic.
These days, I drive a 1999 BMW 328i. It’s the first year of the e46 body style and appears half its age to the untrained eye. I’m proud of the car, and although I do not feel I’m any more deserving of a nice car than anyone else, I sometimes find myself wondering if I appear successful to others—what with my sporty tilted sunroof, ice-cold A/C, unidirectional Z-rated tires, and University of Florida alumni tag. It’s a stupid, arrogant mindset, but sometimes it creeps into my thoughts and I can’t help but wonder.
And after I had passed the little battered Civic, I glanced in my side-view mirror and caught a glimpse of the young couple in the car who were laughing together and apparently unphased, at least for the moment, by the excruciatingly hot air rushing though the open windows of the car.
Then suddenly I felt like the one who was missing out.
