We’re “new” car shopping. New being 2003-2005, car being (until yesterday afternoon) the Honda CR-V, which has won all kinds of consumer confidence blah blah blah and tested good or excellent in all the important safety blah blah blah. We’re doing this because my fourteen year old car appears to have no air conditioning, which is new since last summer. We just put about six bills into fixing the exhaust system over the winter, and the timing belt (among other things) is overdue for replacement, so we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. Which is sad, because I’ve had this car for a long time and it’s been a great ride. I get too attached to non-sentient objects. I get too attached to everything.

We went to a dealer yesterday, and I eagerly climbed into the CR-V to test the size … and discovered the driver’s-side foot-well is about six inches too short on the left side. I’d have to hold my left leg in cramp-inducing positions to sit in the seat of any length of time. Honestly, the entire cockpit area was a bit more snug than I would have liked—if I can’t extend my arms straight forward without touching windshield, I get a little claustrophobic. Major bummer: I’d had my heart set on this thing because of it’s safety and reliability records. Ok, I thought, we’ll try the Honda Odyssey, the CR-V of minivans …

The driver’s-side door control console pushes in about four inches too much, pressing uncomfortably against my left thigh. Deal killer, considering I’ll probably need to spend more than an hour, straight, in these cars on a regular basis (both for basic driving—traffic in the DC area isn’t getting anything but worse—and for longer trips, which is part of the point of buying a new car.)

Toyota Sienna? Just too fucking small in general. They had some Land Rover model which I didn’t even bother with, both because they get horrible fuel economy and because they’re overpriced. At that point, the lackadaisical salesman had sort of wandered off, so we decided to call it a day and head home.

The impetus for this sudden urge for new wheels isn’t just the air conditioning failure. I had limped my old car along through most of a shitty summer with no AC. It’s what we need to use the car for, in the summer, that’s prodding us to get it done now, before the weather hits the high 70s. We’re going to have a lot of things we need to attend this summer dressed in Grown Up Clothes, and we can’t show up sweating in our fancy dress. Not exactly the impression one wishes to bestow on an unexpecting public. “Sup? I’m Sweaty Suit Guy! Grasp my damp palm, friend!”

Along those lines, I’m buying Grown Up Shoes. I can’t show up for these things in scuffed black boots (I’ve been told). So the Carolina 939s are relegated to the closet for a bit. In the cursory shoe shopping I’ve done over the past month or so in preparation for this, I’ve found that very few places have shoes, especially dress shoes, in my size. I’ve confirmed that today, discovering that if I want to wear 1996-style dress shoes, black converse, or these ugly athletic shoes (they look like a wasp fucked a radial tire and had an ugly baby), I’m in luck. If I want to look like a business owner, I’m going to have to search harder.

I’m going to go cry giant tears and drown you all, now.