Bill's new car

Bill's odometer was inching toward 90,000 miles, so he was itching for a new car; and evidently he was one of those satisfied customers, who did his research, but ended up a repeat customer. He turned in his 2000 Acura TL for a 2008. Acura's are made by Honda, a Japanese-owned car company, which some of the members of my family aren't as happy with, but the Acura was made in America (Marysville, OH), thereby giving an American a pretty good job, which I say is better than buying an American car made in Mexico or Canada.

It is much the same to me in appearance as the last one although Bill would tell me in 20 different ways how wrong I am. That's because he's in the tire (therefore auto) business. As a note for future generations, this year was when we as a country began to be concerned about gasoline, the price of gasoline, auto emissions, and the environment. Therefore, Bill and I came up with a strategy for our looming retirement: we would have one large, luxury car (the Acura) for travel (which we planned to do much more often in retirement) and a small, full-efficient car for around-town use. Since that car didn't exist yet (the best gas mileage you could get was in a Toyota Prius at 48 mpg, and they were being treated like gold and the asking price required you have a lot of of it!), we decided to drive my Mazda RX-8 for a couple more years until, hopefully, there was a larger selection of "green" cars.

Meanwhile, the Acura is Bill's new toy because it's his first car with a navagation system (see above). And I already talk back to it. I really don't care for her breathy little voice. Bill said maybe you can change that, like the positions for your seats, so you could choose perky voice or male voice or depressed and pathetic voice (so you feel sorry for it and are less likely to pound on the little screen). I do like when you put the car in reverse and it turns into a backup camera, so I can now be almost 100% sure that I'm not going to run over one of the 3 little children who live across the street from me.

My next favorite luxury item (it is marketed as a luxury vehicle), which we had in the 2000 model and I was an "early adopter", is what I call the bun (seat) warmers. It warms up quicker than the heating system it seems, so I always take advantage of that on a cold day or evening. We have a 6 CD player and, I believe, a better audio system in general, and a place to plug in your MP3 player. I wonder if all this will sound so, so antique 50 years from now.

In truth, however, the car was really chosen because it was the only one on the lot with the light-colored (called beige, but I say it's a very, very, very light gray) interior we wanted. All the others had black (too hot in the South) or butterscotch (which Bill called baby poop tan). I guess you don't want to sit in baby poop for long.

The real question, that I am going to be taking names and quizzing people about, is the exterior color. Take a look at the photo again. Is it gray or is it brown (bronze)? Look at the car in front of Bill and then in back. It's 2 colors, n'est-ce pas? According to the Acura website, it's carbon bronze pearl. I'm not sure I know what the Sam Hill that means, but I think it looks gray and Bill thinks it looks brown.

And, really, it's all about the car's color when you get right down to it, isn't it? After all, when the auto sniper, I mean salesperson, approached us on the lot to see if he could help us find anything, I think we specifically said, "we're looking for something in a grayish brown." :-)