I’m reposting this here from a post that I put up on North American Motoring this morning. It was in response to a thread where a guy was having issues explaining his love for his MINI to his girlfriend, who just could not wrap her head around it. You can find the thread here.
I’m not a huge fan of Subarus, but my mother is in love with her Subaru Legacy. My father bought her a brand new one for Valentine’s day in 2007 and while it wasn’t exactly what she wanted, (my dad added more options than she would have, etc), she quickly fell in love with this car. My mother called me squealing about how beautiful this car was when my dad brought it home for her, and how wonderful it was that he’d bought her a car for Valentine’s day.
Flash forward. 2 months later. My dad borrows my mother’s brand new baby for the first time to drive it to work because his car was in for its annual dent removal. 2 blocks up the road from their house, he rear ends a lady as he’s reaching for his coffee cup.
My mom had to go pick him up from the scene and when she saw her precious baby, she burst into tears on the spot. She still has not forgiven him for hurting her baby that day, even though he had it fixed and the damage was minor.
She will never let him live this down.
Flash forward a year, to me bringing Viola home. My husband was scared to test drive her, but I insisted. I refused to bring home a car that he would not drive. Within a month of me owning my car, my husband still hadn’t driven it and finally he got up the nerve when he wanted to surprise me when meeting me at the airport.
My husband was terrified of parking Viola at work, he was terrified that I would never forgive him if he hurt my car, so he refused to drive it for the longest time… and then I looked at him and said, “Dear, they’re called ‘accidents’. If you wrecked my car, I’d know you didn’t do it on purpose. That’s why they’re called ‘accidents’.”
Now, my husband drives Viola once a week, without fear.
It’s all about your attitude. Your spouse may not understand the MINI thing, but they will understand your love for your car. Your love for them should be enough to forgive them if they have an accident. Accidents do happen, and we should all be thankful when the ones we love walk away from them unscathed. That means our cars did their jobs in protecting the lives inside them.
