car by inches

I test drove the car on Monday, which means I'm 3/5th of the way to actually purchasing. Step 4 is to get a car loan to cover the cost of the car; step 5 is to get insurance for the car and take it home. Once that's over with, I'll be the proud owner of my first, very own set of wheels. All the insurance companies I've talked to thus far want to charge me between $680 and $990 for every six months. $1980 a year for car insurance? I don't think so.

Oh. Did I forget to tell you guys about buying the car?

The Guy's friend has been looking to sell his car, "to someone I know," he said. Apparently, he'd put on a lot of things and kept it in very good condition -- ski racks, CD player, pristine carpets and upholstery -- and he didn't want to waste it on some completely unknown Machuguna answering a Craigslist ad. "I was going to give it to my brother, originally," he said. "Unfortunately, my brother hasn't learned how to drive yet."

"Yuhri's looking for a car," the Guy remembered. "Let me drop her a line and ask her if she's interested."

So it was that I received an email from the Guy at work. "Lebin's looking to sell his 1997 CRV," it read. "You interested?"

I looked online. (CRV? What the hell was a CRV?)

"Mini-SUV," read one review. My eyes skipped over the 'mini' and went straight to 'SUV.'

Say it with me now, folks. "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not of the things that be of God, but those that be of gas-guzzling."

"I want a Prius," I told the Guy firmly, and at length. "I want a Honda Civic or a Prius."

He nodded obligingly. "Okay."

"It's because the Prius is a hybrid and it's good for the environment," I explained. "It doesn't use as much gas. Plus, it's got low emissions. I'll be supporting the technology, and I'll be supporting the environment, and just think of all the money I'll be saving on gas. Plus, I could ride in the car pool lane all by myself if I wanted to, and that would be so awesome during rush hour."

He nodded obligingly. "Then get one."

"Otherwise I could get a Honda Civic, which is cheaper. I mean, it's not as good as the Prius, but at least it's a good, sound, small car. I don't want a large car. Ick. But the Civic has pretty good room in it, not that I need it or anything, plus it has a great resale value and is good for the environment. I mean, relatively. Lots of miles per gallon."

His head kept nodding; his eyes were glazing over. "You should do that."

"I will," I said firmly. "I'm not interested in a SUV. SUVs are ... they're evil. Yuck. I mean, ew."

"Yes, dear." He patted me on the head. "Evil."

A few days later I went down to test-drive the CRV.

I hate myself. I really do.

I informed the Guy that we would be cutting off about a foot's length of his hip-length hair. (Yes, hip-length. For those that don't know him, trust me when I say he's not a hippie-type. He's more of a, well, bright-yellow-bumblebee-safety-sign-sports-bike-kinda-Hells-Angel-but-geek-type.)

"Look at it," I reproached, fiddling with the ends of his braid. "It's all damaged at the ends. It's practically white. It's dry and cracked. You need to cut off about six inches and start all over again."

"Sure," he said amiably.

"In fact," I said, discovering once again that peeling split ends is possibly one of the most idiotic and soul-soothing occupations anywhere, provided said split ends are attached to someone else's head, "In fact, you should cut off at least a foot. Definitely at least a foot."

The Guy was starting to get suspicious with the deliberation with which I was playing with his hair. Nonetheless, he was agreeable. "Okay. A foot's not much. What is it, only yea long." He measured out what he fondly imagined to be a foot with his forefingers.

I peered at the distance between them. It's possible that in Guy-world, compensating for a radical Guy-world curve in space-time, that particular distance could have equated to twelve inches. "Um," I said.

Here on Planet Earth with everybody else -- everybody being the female half of the population, which actually measures using a straight ruler and not in, shall we say, relative-anatomy terms -- what he was measuring would have been closer to six inches. Maybe seven.

"Not quite," I said.

He optimistically inched his fingers a little further apart. "This much?"

I started to snicker into his shoulder.

"Hey," said he. "You know the explanation about why women can't park?"