I wanted to set an example. A bad example. Well, a good bad
example. Not for my son, but for the men around me.
‘Boys and their toys’ people say, wagging fingers and
rolling eyes.
Exactly. What is a boy with a toy, except for happy? And what’s
wrong with happiness?
Before we get all naïve about it, I’ll tell you what’s wrong
with happiness when it comes from a
grown man clutching a metal thing he can see his reflection in and
making ‘brrmm brrmm’ noises with his slightly moist lips. This slobbery gent
has responsibilities. He has a family. He has a job. He has loved ones and
limited time in the day. Happiness spent with his shiny metal thing is
happiness spent in the absence of all those things one builds a fulfilling life
around. Money spent on the shiny metal thing is money lifted away from comforts for those he shares his life with.
Fancy Car can easily equal Selfish Dad.
This is why Men In Flash Wheels are often regarded with suspicion.
‘Who went without?’ is the question that readily springs to
mind when we see two doors and a sloping bonnet. Of course, there’s no way of
really knowing, but for my friends, there is.
I come across as a reader, I suppose. Car-Guyness is
something I’ve kept hidden. The car helped me come out of the closet in a few
ways, but one of them was putting that little germ in the minds of those men
around me: toys aren’t bad. Cars are fun. (Well, fun cars are fun.) Since it
arrived I’ve started conversations about cars and seen a faraway look of
dreaming and scheming I haven’t come across.
‘Hell’ it says ‘if he can do it, it must be possible.’
Even entering your dream-date coordinates into
carsales.com.au is fun. I do it for people all the time.
‘Look!’ I write in an email out of the blue ‘There’s one in
Melbourne! Look how priddy! Look how actually cheap the stupid thing is! Sell
the Camry! Roadtrip!’
No one’s actually done it yet. The toy, for my friends, is a
symbol of a very well-balanced life. No one’s trading folded arms and The Face
of Disappointment for a 12 year old Beemer with a timing belt of indeterminate
status. These things have to be thought through.
Toys must be earned.
So when I dropped by the in-laws yesterday, and saw a 350Z, in
black no less, parked where a reliable station wagon should have been, I knew
that in some small way, I had failed.
The good bad example was just a bad
example.
The automobile that should have been able to ferry elderly parents and
a child who cannot legally sit in the front seat was instead the black, sleek
nephew to my own little slice of happiness.
I’ve never been a fan of the 350Z. As long as I’ve liked Skylines,
300ZXs, Silvias, GTRs and everything else, the 350Z always seemed a little bit
buggy. As in: it looked like a bug. From a lot of angles, the tail is too long,
the proportions a bit chubby. That’s usually fine. We all have our favourites.
Now it’ll always be the symbol of a dolt. A buffoon who
thought of nothing but himself, until I, with the naivety of country kindergarten
teacher on his first Tindr date, skipped by in the little piece of positive
incongruity that I imagined would simply send imaginations wandering over to
Gumtree > Cars > Under $10,000. Instead, I was saying ‘Let them all go
without. Look after yourself.’
