Living in the lap of luxury

Welp, we bought another car. We are now a two car couple. I KNOW! But people, please. There is something I beg of you--just continue to treat us normally, ok? That's all we want. I know we are EXTREMELY intimidating now that we own not one, but TWO Toyota Corollas, which everyone knows are the fanciest cars to ever be produced, but we're still ourselves. We still want to mingle with the common folk who just have one car, ok? We'll just drive separately to hang out with you. The "new" car has become mine, because I don't drive very far every day, and Chris does, so he needs the nicer one. Not that mine isn't nice, I mean come on, look at it--

Chris said he heard somewhere that the longer the antenna is, the nicer the car is, so here he is inspecting said antenna. This theory makes tons of sense, because the antenna is pretty long, and this is the most luxurious vehicle I've ever had the privilege of operating.

I don't know about you, but just looking at the thing makes me feel like I'm in a rap video. Check out those rims. I will totes give you a ride in my ride, just make sure you don't bring any CDs, because we only gots a tape deck! Aw yeah.

In all seriousness, I am SO grateful to have another car, and that we found one for cheap! I don't know why I love making fun of it so much, it probably resents me already. But I have been walking to work every morning (and back home too, some afternoons) for the past 2 and a half years, so this baby truly does feel SO luxurious to me.

Of course though, in true Erin style, as soon as I found out I wouldn't be walking to work anymore, I got all sentimental about my morning walks and so sad they would be over. (I know what you're all thinking--"You can still walk to work sometimes, weirdo." Yeah, I CAN. But you know what else I can do? Sleep longer. And if you think I'm going to choose walking to work over sleeping longer, you must not have met me before.) But really, I almost wanted to tell all my "friends" that I wouldn't be seeing them anymore. There's the lady who walks her dog every morning--he used to bark at me, but doesn't anymore, I think he knows me now. Plus he's not a puppy anymore! He's getting so big!

And the guy who wears the dorky bike helmet and tucks his pants into his socks--love him too. We always nod at each other and I try to clear the sidewalk as he goes by. And the construction workers--ok, I won't miss them, because sometimes because of them I had to do awkward things like jump off a concrete barrier and run through their little "project," all the while praying that the guy with the Santa Claus beard operating the backhoe saw me and wasn't going to reverse and run me over. He didn't.

And the group of middle school boys, they're my favorite. I missed them last summer when they were out of school, plus I had the added suspense of not knowing if they had just finished 8th grade and would be moving on to high school, or if they had just finished 7th and had another year of us crossing paths in the morning. Then sure enough, last August, one morning, there they were! They were excited to see me too. I have never talked to these boys aside from saying hello, but there are about 7 of them that walk to school together in the morning, and we always say hi to each other, or wave from across the street. Sometimes I won't be paying attention, and then I will realize that all of them are like jumping up and down to wave at me on the other side of the 5 lane highway. I love it. And when will I listen to podcasts now? Or call Teenwhizzle? You know? These are the things I will miss about my morning walks.

Jeez, I had a lot more to say about that than I thought I did. And there is probably even more if I just let myself keep typing but the point is--We got a car. It's a 2000 Corolla with a tape deck, it's got power windows and locks, it's maroon, it has an automatic transmission, and it's a Mormon.

Oh hey!