Our car purchases are dictated by three things – By Wendi Rank
One is my husband’s commute from Bucks County to North Philadelphia. Two is our children. Where will they sit? Can they handle driving it themselves? Who sits by the inoperable window in the car we bought from my mom? Third is our family cabin.
Oh, don’t get jealous on me. Unless you like showering with squiggly bugs, washing your hair on the porch, and storing food with the ever-present mice in mind. Do – do you like those things? Because I’m looking for someone to play the role of me at that cabin. Call me. I’ll sign you up for auditions.
Having four-wheel drive is, for much of the year, needed to get to our cabin. So, four-wheel drive, space for kids, good gas mileage. There’s not a lot of, um, intersection there.
So we do the vehicle switcharoo –my husband drives the gas-friendly car to work. I take the four-wheel drive for the daily neighborhood tooling around. When my husband goes to our cabin, we swap. He takes the big, four-wheel drive gas guzzler. I take the smaller car.
As we inched into the latter half of 2024, our four-wheel drive closed in on nearly a decade as our workhorse. It was time to retire.
While deciding on a replacement, we recognized our kids were really no longer a factor – now driving on their own, we don’t need a car capable of transporting them, their friends. Just, you know, the occasional unruly beagle.
Enter our pickup truck. After taking it for a test drive, we checked the pickup bed, fiddled with the Bluetooth, climbed in the backseat. “It’s small back here,” my husband observed. “Not a lot of space for the kids. Or Pete,” he added, belatedly thinking of that unruly beagle.“My parents crammed a family of six in a Datsun hatchback,” I replied. “Do you know how many times I sat on the hump in the floor? Had my sister in my lap? The kids’ll survive the few times they’re actually back here.” So it was decided. We bought the pickup.
Now, when I tell you I’m a pale, skinny, bookish blonde, you’ll understand the looks – comments, even – I get from total strangers as I climb from that truck.
And the day I forgot to swap cars with my husband, rolled up to my mom’s assisted living place, and ordered all eighty-one years of her to hop in–that was an interesting day. “I’ll just slide out!” my mom said, eyeing the sidewalk a good foot below her shoes.
But here’s the thing. That truck hates me. I’m convinced she’s sentient, female, and as mean a girl as any Tina Fey character. The truck will not, for example, allow Apple CarPlay to connect to my phone. Sometimes, she won’t even connect by Bluetooth. I listen to podcasts like it’s the early aughts–phone in the cupholder to amplify the sound. On the rare occasion I place my phone in the truck’s charging bed, the two never stay connected. They disengage incessantly, a tiny ping! sounding each time they join again. Ping! Ping! Ping ping piiinnng! It has all the aural pleasure of a dripping faucet.
The truck has a phone app. Through the app, we can do things like remotely start the ignition. But my end of the app tells me our truck’s VIN is not, in fact, our truck’s VIN. As such, I am an imposter. Maybe even a criminal. I mean, I’m the one who defended the truck’s minuscule backseat. But whatever.
Recently, as I alighted from the truck, a fellow observed me, an amused smile playing about his lips. “You don’t look like a pickup driver,” he chuckled. Funny, but I think that truck feels the same way.
Contact Wendi Rank on Instagram @wendirank
