It's Different

C took the Jaguar for a solo drive last night. First time.

Now, C loves  her Honda Odyssey. It helps her perform her role as loving family COO, and it's such a safe, comfortable, pleasant, dependable, high-quality vehicle. It handles itself well in town and traffic. It roadtrips five people and a dog to central Utah like nobody's business. And it pulls MPGs in the high 20's for all the space it provides us. I don't think she'd really want anything else for her daily ride. We all love it, frankly. Running a family without one would be much, much more difficult. How we ever got along with the Trooper for so long is hard, now, to imagine.

Having said that, she often confided that having a Mercedes to ride in was a real ego booster sometimes and a nice treat. She noticed that she got a higher level of  respectful treatment when she drove the Mercedes; people were always just a little nicer to her, in subtle and undefinable ways. People would actually notice the car. She could see people trying to connect the car to the owner with their eyes. It was just...different. Special. Worth putting something nicer from the closet.

I had told her it was even more different in the Jaguar, that the conspicuousness goes up a notch, based on what I've seen so far.  She was a bit skeptical (thinking, I'm sure, about the pickup truck driver in southern Oregon who gave us all sorts of attitude just for having a Benz. I mean how could you be more conspicuous than inciting a guy to make gestures and yell out his window while we're on cruise control going down the interstate? Good thing the Benz had double-paned glass...the kids didn't hear the words he used. Neither did we, for that matter, I just read his lips), but then she took the Jaguar out herself and saw what I was talking about.

The gas station attendants immediately called her Ma'am, and used a completely different tone of voice with her -- hushed, deferential. It's more than respect -- awe. People don't just match the car to owner, they stop and admire the car outright. Pedestrians walking past the gas station actually pause and stare. Not at her, but at the car. Then they catch themselves and look for the owner...admiringly. Someone approached her as she waited, just to tell her how nice her car was.

She picked up on that difference once she experienced it for herself. I mean, how could you NOT? She did a good job capturing the feeling when she put it this way:

"In my Honda Odyssey, I'm just another soccer mom. In a Mercedes, I'm respectable. But In the Jaguar, I am a GODDESS!"

I love that line!

 

Driving to work,this morning, I watched a Geo Metro -- paint all beat up, with two young twenty-somethings, man and woman -- pull up behind me at the light. They were both really clean cut, well groomed and dressed like you'd expect a college graduate to dress for their first jobs. I could easily imagine them as a young couple in love, starting their careers after graduating from college last spring, making do with what they've got as they get started. Full of big dreams and ambitions. There was a happiness in their faces. But that changed as he sat behind me, impatient that I didn't make the right turn on the red light quite yet. His body language got a bit angry, as he spoke animatedly and gestured at my car. He wasn't gesturing toward me, I noticed, but toward the car itself. In the rearview mirror, I could see he was staring at the spot on the trunk where the badge is. It was about the car. He'd have been looking at the back of my headrest if he was angry at me. I could see her expression shift from engaged to withdrawn. She had been turned toward him, smiling, as they approached. She turned her head away and stared blankly out the window after that. I got the sense that he was frustrated that he wasn't driving a car like the Jaguar. I made the turn, as did they. For the next two or three miles, he followed me in traffic. They never went back to to their happiness. They were withdrawn.

The whole experience took me right back to my first couple years, driving a beat up Honda Civic. Happy as I was to have a car at all, there was still a hunger. I'd park in the lot at the software company, next to the Maserati, the BMWs, the Porches, and the CEO's Ferrari... in my stupid littl 1200cc Honda pillb0x. "One of these days," I'd tell myself, "one of these days." On a rainy day when the Ferrari wouldn't start again, and the tow truck would come to take it to the shop for an electrical harness dry-out, I'd count the dollars and realize that the CEO was spending more per month on towing than my car actually cost. At least my car would start in the rain, and a set of four tires cost me $60. I counted those things as blessings and told myself, once again, "One of these days..."

Well, young man behind me in traffic this morning: if you're reading this, don't make it miserable for you and your girlfriend. One of these days, you'll have a Jaguar too. Just keep working hard for it, wait for the right opportunity, and don't rush. I feel much closer to you, young man, in your Geo Metro, to this day, than I do to the other Jaguar owners around town. I may be one myself now, but they still intimidate me. I'm sure I'll keep talking to them in hushed, reverent tones -- calling them 'Sir' and "Ma'am" --  even as I drive a Jaguar myself.