The Bimmer

It can be hard to sit in cloudy, foggy England while your husband is away weeks at a time in smouldering hot weather. Images swirl endlessly of him sipping strawberry daiquiris on white sand beaches with turquoise water glistening behind all the swaying palm trees after a hard days work swimming with Flipper and all his friends. The more I think about him in paradise the more bored I get with England, rain and its dark endless days. The more bored I get the more I think I need something to do and this usually never leads to a good thing…

It was November and Andy was in Cyprus "working" and I was at home in not so sunny England selling glossy lipstick and shinny bronzers making the UK more tan and beautiful one person at a time. Andy had been gone for about three weeks and I was getting on with my everyday life driving to and from work, coming home, walking Alfie and then talking on Skype for the remaining hours of the day with my mom and dad. It was during a Skype date with my mom and dad on my dads 61st birthday that the trouble began. 

While on Skype to my mom and my half cut dad, drinking his third birthday manhattan,  I began to tell them how my car had a flat tire. I told them on my way to work a truck pulled up next to me at a stop light, rolled down his window and had his 12 year old son hanging out the window waving his arms at me. I naturally ignored this and pretended they were not waving and pointing at me as my face grew red and flushed with embarrassment as I wondered and worried about why they kept pointing and shouting at me. Then, when the man began honking his horn, I decided I could no longer ignore his obnoxious attention getting and I rolled down my window only to be told my tire was flat. For the rest of my ride to work I was terrified my tire was going to completely fun out of air and my car would go flying off the road, flipping multiple times on the way possibly killing me. I could hardly drive I was panicking so much. I grew even more nervous when I started thinking of how I would fix this problem. I had no idea how to fill up a tire with air, or how much air to fill it with, or even where to do this. Isn't this what dads and husbands are for? 

So after telling my compulsive, buy a new are every 4 months parents,  my car dilemma there was only one solution… to buy a new car…tomorrow!

After hours of talking, looking at cars, finding the perfect one and deciding this was definitely the best thing for my own safety, ti was decided that in the morning I was going to go get my new car. I tried to get in touch with Andy sending him what seemed like a thousand messages to see if he was OK with this new purchase using a pretty big chunk of his, I mean our, savings and more importantly, did he like the car. However, I never got a response so I took this as a yes to buying the car. 

The next morning I got up called my mom to make sure I was doing the right thing and sent Andy a message saying, "I'm on my way to the BMW dealership. YAY! I going to buy a car. Let me know if you don't think I should." I arrived at the dealership with my parents seal of approval and not a single message from my husband telling not to buy that beautiful black BMW. 

I marched into the dealership and stood there looking around, feeling a little anxious, waiting for a salesman to show me my dream car. After a few minutes, when I think they relized I was on my own, one approached me and asked if he could help me. I looked him straight in the eye and said, "Yes, I want the black BMW with a hatchback I saw online." He asked if I knew the model, to which I responded I had no idea. He seemed a little confused but took me around the car lot until we saw the one I wanted. As we looked at it he kept asking me questions like, "How do you like it? Is this the type of thing you wanted?" I fumbled nervously nodding my head yes saying it was perfect for mine and my husband's border collie. The he asked the question I was fearing the most, "Did I want to test drive the car?" Yikes! He wanted me to get in and drive a car that was not yet mine? He obviously didn't know my track record or that I had no idea what I was feeling for, looking for, or hearing for when I test drove this thing. But, as the saying goes, you never buy the car without taking it for a spin. I sucked it up and test drove the car around the block, after making him back it out of the parking space and driving it off the lot first! 

I survived the five minute test drive and said it felt and sounded great, pretending I knew exactly what I was looking and listening for.  As we sat down he started with the questions again asking me if I wanted to call my husband and have him come look at the car before I bought it. I simply said, "No. He is out of the country and doesn't know I am here." The salesman's jaw dropped and his eyes got huge as he said, "OK…. Don't hear that everyday." To which I just smiled and replied, "But will you excuse me while I Skype my Dad in Florida so he can make sure the car looks alight." I think he thought I was some crazy american because he stared at me for a few minutes before he said yes. I stood in the car lot, skyped my parents, got the thumbs up and went back in and signed the papers. 

I felt really excited and good about my purchase, especially after the salesman handed me a big bouquet of flowers saying, "Congratulations on your new car." He then shook my hand, and handed over the keys. I drove that car off the lot like I was the coolest person in school. I drove away thinking I was hot shit as I rode home in my fancy new car. This "Im too cool for school" attitude lasted all the way home. It wasn't until I spoke with my brother in law that his lack of words, ghost white face  and his need to sit down or else he might faint, was a small indication that maybe this isn't a normal spousal thing to do. It was made pretty clear that maybe Andy won't be over joyed with my purchase and use of spending our savings when my sister, Samantha, had to keep reassuring her husband  she was  not going to go buy a car, or a house, or anything for that matter without telling him. Hmmmmmmmmm I began to think I'm not so sure how Andy will take the news of a new car and a very significant dent in our savings… Even if it was perfect to toting our dog around!

(Just for the record we are still married, he does still love me, and I think he has opened his own private saving account :-))