Hearse for a Family Car? Yes. I Think So.

We're not in the market for a new car for me. My car is doing just fine. Around here, we drive cars until we have to scrape them off the asphalt with a spatula, and mine's nowhere near that -- we've got another 10 years left on it. At least. Sam's the one who needs a new car, since even getting his started is a hit-or-miss affair these days. Now that he's a retired stay-at-home dad, he needs a pickup truck (I'm still unclear as to the logic of this, but never mind), but it can't be ANY pickup truck -- it has to be used, it has to have room for three people, it has to receive the local jazz station -- oh there's a list of things it must be, and he's not actively looking -- he just sorta eyes the used car lots as he drives down Route 51 -- so we're not getting a replacement for the Naughty Bad Car any time soon.

Which is a shame, because I'm going to have to upset the entire intricately balanced buying-of-cars schema we've got, and jump the line, because I have Found My True Car.

I get to see her every afternoon while I'm driving home, stuck in a long line of single lane traffic going towards Hazelwood. She's sitting, not in a used-car lot, but the parking lot of a filling station, and while I inch by in rush hour traffic, I look her over. She's mine, mine, I say; I just have to figure out how much the filling station will give for my three year old Subaru station wagon, and then look over the state of my retirement fund.

I don't know if she runs, or anything, but who cares? Small detail. She's a beautiful silver hearse, and I want her.

Oh, yes. Not your usual run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen black hearse -- a silver hearse. With cream-colored curtains. Oh, a darling car. A truly darling car. Mine.

I think this would be a Very Practical Purchase, too -- it looks to me like there's even more room in the back than I've got in the station wagon -- we need that space for the annual drive down to South Carolina and the annual purchase of Christmas tree, and I think this car could handle it just fine.

Also, the lovely cream colored curtains would nicely hide the goods I invariably forget about and leave in the back, and if the thieves can't see them, they can't be tempted.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that thieves in general don't mess with hearses.

Now, I don't know how FAST it goes -- that's maybe not a concern of hearse makers. So that could be an issue.

Also there's the parking thing -- I think this might not fit in the spaces over in the parking lot at work.

But that car is me. It is SO me.

And hearses don't show up so often in the used car trade -- you gotta snap them up.