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It’s been tempting in this very public breast cancer blog to appear a la Kathryn Hepburn—cheerful or light-hearted, or at least feisty and brave—but I think it’s important to know that I sometimes hit overload and can barely cope. It’s easy to cover this in a blog, as few who read it actually know me: Instead of writing about myself, I just respond to a recent study or news story. But “the reality is,” (a phrase that irritates me but applies), I can be humming along, feeling like one heckuva survivor, when something—often an accumulation of somethings—knocks me flat.
Take my recent car purchase: Ever since that December trip to Florida, I have been spending as much energy on purchasing a car as I have facing my long January list of medical check-ups. That trip made me realize that it was time to replace my gas-guzzling (17-mpg highway), mechanically capricious 13-year-old van with something I could drive safely and afar.
It started with a Chevy Malibu I rented in December. The rental agency assured me that it would get 34 miles to the gallon, and, by gum, it did, for over 2,000 miles. I was so impressed that when I got home, I went car shopping for something that would endure ten more years, accommodate my large art pieces, and economize on gas. I ended up torn between a 2003 Subaru Forester and a 2003 Mitsubishi Outlander, both the same price, and both at their dealers, who assured me that these vehicles would get 27 or 28 mpg highway.
I chose performance over perks, turning down the tempting bright blue Mitsubishi with the moon roof and the heated tan leather seats, choosing instead the boring silver Subaru with gray interior because it handled better.
Got a car loan from my credit union, no problem. Everything was fine except that the needle on the gas gauge seemed to be moving with appalling speed. Last week, during a trip to Ann Arbor, I kept track and discovered that my Subaru was getting 18.8 mpg highway (not 28 mpg), barely better than my 13-year-old 8-cylinder full-size Ford conversion van.
My new wings were clipped—it was costing me the same to drive this vehicle as my van, which had sold in two days. But I soon discovered that although you can return almost any purchased merchandise you don’t like for almost any reason, you can’t return a car. The “30-day warranty” didn’t mean, I discovered, that I could return a vehicle that didn’t perform as claimed.
In a few days I will be undergoing my 6-month mammogram with my usual angst, an appointment with my breast cancer surgeon, and my fourth appointment with the car dealer.
“It’s only $50 more in gas a month,” he said the last time I sat there, asking him to take it back. That adds up to $600 a year, $6,000 in ten years, I pointed out. He agreed only to have the car checked, after which the technician said, “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Survival is not always noble. Stark tenacity—refusal to give up—is sometimes enough. So whether on Monday that dealer blames me, (as two employees already have), saying I probably drive too fast, or the weather is too cold, or the car is too old, or whether I become visibly upset in full view of that showroom, I will persist. I have, after all, survived worse.
Take my recent car purchase: Ever since that December trip to Florida, I have been spending as much energy on purchasing a car as I have facing my long January list of medical check-ups. That trip made me realize that it was time to replace my gas-guzzling (17-mpg highway), mechanically capricious 13-year-old van with something I could drive safely and afar.
It started with a Chevy Malibu I rented in December. The rental agency assured me that it would get 34 miles to the gallon, and, by gum, it did, for over 2,000 miles. I was so impressed that when I got home, I went car shopping for something that would endure ten more years, accommodate my large art pieces, and economize on gas. I ended up torn between a 2003 Subaru Forester and a 2003 Mitsubishi Outlander, both the same price, and both at their dealers, who assured me that these vehicles would get 27 or 28 mpg highway.
I chose performance over perks, turning down the tempting bright blue Mitsubishi with the moon roof and the heated tan leather seats, choosing instead the boring silver Subaru with gray interior because it handled better.
Got a car loan from my credit union, no problem. Everything was fine except that the needle on the gas gauge seemed to be moving with appalling speed. Last week, during a trip to Ann Arbor, I kept track and discovered that my Subaru was getting 18.8 mpg highway (not 28 mpg), barely better than my 13-year-old 8-cylinder full-size Ford conversion van.
My new wings were clipped—it was costing me the same to drive this vehicle as my van, which had sold in two days. But I soon discovered that although you can return almost any purchased merchandise you don’t like for almost any reason, you can’t return a car. The “30-day warranty” didn’t mean, I discovered, that I could return a vehicle that didn’t perform as claimed.
In a few days I will be undergoing my 6-month mammogram with my usual angst, an appointment with my breast cancer surgeon, and my fourth appointment with the car dealer.
“It’s only $50 more in gas a month,” he said the last time I sat there, asking him to take it back. That adds up to $600 a year, $6,000 in ten years, I pointed out. He agreed only to have the car checked, after which the technician said, “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Survival is not always noble. Stark tenacity—refusal to give up—is sometimes enough. So whether on Monday that dealer blames me, (as two employees already have), saying I probably drive too fast, or the weather is too cold, or the car is too old, or whether I become visibly upset in full view of that showroom, I will persist. I have, after all, survived worse.
