By Emily Rosen, M.A.
www.emilyrosen424.com
I am ready – ripe-ready – for a new car. This will probably be my last car. I keep them for 10 years or more, and the actuarial tables — well, you know – they are not in my favor.
So I walk into the showroom(s) up and down Federal Highway. It isn’t that I don’t know what I want.
It seems – that it doesn’t exist – YET.
“Good afternoon,” say the smiling salespeople, ready to pounce. “How can I help you today?”
Sheepishly and simply, I say: “I want a yellow car.”
They smile in a kind of patronizing yet disbelieving way, and repeat, “You want a yellow car? “
“Yes.”
“ANY yellow car?”
“Well – not exactly. It must be 4 doors, with a decent size trunk (no hatchback), get good gas mileage and be either new or have been driven no more than 8,000 miles.”
The puzzled look turns into a frown, and before they begin to sputter, I add, “Oh! And it must be somewhere close to the $20,000 category.”
“MUST it be yellow?”
“That’s the idea!”
My now 10-year-old plus car is Silver. My husband admonished me long ago, when we were shopping for it, that yellow is a bad color for resale, that it’s a kid-color and “For heaven sake – why not just buy a N.Y.C. cab?” My response was, “Hurumph!” And reluctantly, I succumbed.
Don’t get me wrong. I love, love, love (it’s almost Valentine’s Day, you know) my Silver car. But it’s NOT YELLOW – and it’s time for a new one, and, since my husband’s recent demise, there’s no one around to dissuade me from getting yellow.
So far, there is no end to this ongoing story, but I tell it in light of the inevitability of the arrival of yet another of Valentine’s Day. I’ve written about the holiday for the past 20- plus years – in as many permutations as I could dredge up: the romance, the humor, the gifts, the original heart-palpitating times, the sturdy long-time reliable love, the disappointments and acceptances, the effects of technology and social media on love, the love for children and grandchildren, the love of fellow humans and ways to volunteer to show that love — and so much more. But this time, it’s a tribute to love of self.
Irrational as it is, and I cannot even articulate a reason for my “krazy kraving,” a yellow car is something I want. I cannot be accused of requiring instant gratification, since I’ve wanted one for over 10 years.
Obviously, this lack of gratification has not interfered with my life nor has it caused me any pain, but, by golly – why shouldn’t I have it as long as I can pay for it!
And thus, my Valentine’s message for 2014 is congruent with my personal life philosophy (well a piece of it anyway): “Every day I try to do something for somebody else and something for myself.”
I’m counting on a yellow car – from me — for Valentine’s day.
