acquisitions update, #5

Okay, the kitchen chairs from my online furniture spree have arrived, and I received notice that my armchair is on its way. The kitchen chairs were just sitting in a giant box in front of my door when I got home; I don't know if the armchair will also arrive that way. I suppose I'm fine with that, but I will be annoyed if that is how they intend to deliver the sofa I've ordered.

I talked to my mother tonight that I would have a new car within two weeks. I'm hoping that it does not take even that long. A gold-club-premium-subscriber in Tashkent, OH noted that this is perhaps the first car search conducted over a blog that has included both the Toyota Prius and an SUV as part of its seeming list of finalists.

Speaking of which, I had the following conversation on my cel phone the other night, as I walked from the social science building to the parking lot:

"Who was it that said you wouldn't be forgiven if you got an SUV?"

"No one said that specifically, that was more a characterization of the basic sentiment."

"Who said it?"

"Numerous people. People with all sorts of different connections to me wrote in to advise me with some urgency that I should not get an SUV. It may be the single most voluminous expression of opinion that I've yet received regarding any idea floated on the weblog."

"Do they know that compact SUVs get about the same gas mileage and have the same emissions as some of the dumpy suburbanite wannabe sedans you had on your list? Do they know how much better the all-wheel drive handles on the snow in winter?"

"I know, I know, but I'm not going to get an SUV. I'm a conformist. I'm conflict-averse. You know that I have a longstanding and amply-documented pathological need for the approval of others."

"You are so infuriating. You are such a scared little kitten of a man."

"I mean, come on, when you get e-mails from people that you haven't heard from in years, who turn out to have been reading your weblog for who knows how long without any inclination toward saying hello, but then they write in because they feel this urgency to implore you not to buy an SUV, you get the sense that driving around in an SUV--which I would remind you was never something I had that much enthusiasm for in the first place--would be the kind of thing that would just be an enduring source of ridicule."

At this point I'm entering the parking lot, walking toward my car. I realize that I have been talking quite loudly into my cel phone and hadn't noticed that a couple has been walking fairly closely behind me. Their vehicle turns out to be near the front of the lot, and, sure enough, it is an SUV.

In any case, an original intention of this post was to announce officially that the compact-SUV has been officially crossed-off the prospective purchase list. I was then caused to reconsider when a reader from Vanishing Hitchhiker, CO e-mailed to say that "a major reason people buy SUVs is because the high carriage means people can easily see underneath the car in the parking lot of the local shopping mall in case some dangerous youth is lurking there, waiting to slice their achilles and take their purchases." Given that I have also been thinking about buying one of those platform beds out of fear of this same threat, I thought perhaps the compact-SUV should be thrown back into the pool of serious deliberation. Ultimately, however, I have decided that even if it means that I need to invest in some high-backed-blade-proof boots, I'm not going to give further consideration to buying a compact-SUV.