Still playing with Transformers

When the work you do is repetitive and mindless it just makes coming home and providing updates feel like another chore on your checklist. Some things you really have to put out there. I mean, if I’m going to have a blog… I’m really going to have to use it to tell you crazy things happening in my life, such as, I have a new (used) car.

Yeah, so um, this is mine:

Beep, beep! Vrooooom!

An ever so polarizing 2004 Honda Element, with all the fixins’. It’s a senior citizen with a healthy 89,000 miles on it but the exterior is practically pristine and the interior nearly as good. It runs well and it remains fully featured. When I’m talking upgrades from my other car I’m talking about the little details like, cruise control, air conditioning, uh, a passenger’s side mirror, or, you know, starting when the fuel drops below a quarter of a tank.

I think there are three parts of my quirky personality that make me love this auto so automatically.

One. Hauling stuff. I think I’ve gotten addicted to it thanks to a history of deceivingly roomy sedans. I’ve spent the last eight to nine years taking all or nearly all of my belongings on the road to temporary locations and I demand a vehicle that can do it. Sadly the temporary and transitional me is on the road to retirement but I still like having the space for, I don’t know… say, a Rhodes electric piano??… behind me.

Two. Recreational vehicles. I grew up vacationing in vehicles designed for living in the outdoors. It’s silly and subtle, but like home cooking, parts of the Element bring me back to my childhood. A couple of times since the car has been mine I’ve parked it for the night and then left the cab of the vehicle to fuss around in the cargo hold with the transforming seats or star vista granting skylight. It felt just like times past with the RV reined up to the highway rest stop and Mom coming back from the cab to make sandwiches in a home on wheels.

Three. Irreverent need to be different. Which is exactly what Honda was trying to do to me with the Element in the first place and why I’ve had my eyes on one since it debuted in 2003. Which means I’m not being different at all. I am one hundred percent conforming to the message Honda made for me. Oh well, same thing I’m doing every time I “slam a mountain dew” or rooting for the Red Sox, or eating macaroni and cheese with my ears. No wait, that last one is pretty different. If I did it. But I eat my mac and cheese with a fork… like the rest of you brainless robots.

I hope to take it into the Adirondacks real soon, drop the tailgate, and relax inside my new favorite automobile… which for the first time also happens to be mine.