I'm a stereotypical girl in my affinity for clothes; I can very easily convince myself to spend irrational amounts of money on unnecessary purchases because they're just so cute and I would be so sad if I didn't just buy that one sweater with the really cute scoop neck and delicate color. My mind feels relieved to make the purchase as a preventative measure to feeling sad and it just feels logical in its illogic.

But I've never been equally swooned by other materialistic Stuff. Until the past year or so, anyway, when I discovered an appreciation for pretty cars that are also capable of going vroooooom. Especially after drooling over the impressive racecars at the Nurburg Ring in Germany during EP00, I have been figuring out how much I want to put aside for the next year so that I can buy or lease an awesome amazing drool-worthy car. And today, aside from completely covering a coworker's desk in aluminum foil (a great prank I highly recommend; but that's a story I'll save for once we've seen the coworker's reaction next week and I have pictures to share. Our boss thought it was awesome though and laughed a lot this afternoon), I designed the Audi TT Roadster of my dreams (with the Bose premium package of course, KAB) . She's beautiful. It's hard to resist wanting to pick the most of everything - horsepower, interior features, blah blah, but for the upcharges how often am I really going to take advantage of the incremental advantages of those features? Exactly. Hardly ever.

For me to get much more serious about this purchase/lease, though, I'm going to have to overcome the fact that my 1999 Suzuki Grand Vitara is working absolutely fine. Nothing wrong. Not even a hint that anything's wrong (all good things I realize). Although this could be seen as a positive, since I will get the most for my car as a trade in if it is actually operable. So I feel a little wasteful and indulgent thinking about getting a sweet sweet car. And it'd also mean less money going into the long term savings for when I'm old and feeble.

But let's be honest here, bloggy, who cares about old and feeble when you can be young and cool in a silver (or ocean blue pearl or gunmetal gray) convertible with the top down screamin' out 'money ain't a thang'?

Another issue I have is that I feel like when I do decide to make a purchase, whatever it may be, I'm destined to get hosed by the dealership. Isn't that how car purchases just work? You just have to accept the lying and cheating as part of your dues to take the gleaming hunk of high technology materials and purring engine off the lot.

Oh! And another thing - I feel like I have to take a MAN with me because that's just how it works. Those nighttime news magazine TV shows have shown the same story repeatedly, about how the man always gets a better deal when trying to buy a car. This idea insults me, and not necessarily because of the fact that I'm a verified, real, true-to-life mechanical engineer (and, shhhh, don't tell the dealer that that doesn't really mean that I know that much about cars on a practical level -- sure, I could Carnot cycle all day, but when it comes to understanding the nuances of WHY I'd want the extra piston - or whatever it's called - I'd have no clue) and so I should be given just as much respect. This idea insults me because I'm a person who wants to buy a car so I should be given just as much respect and just as much of a good deal! Ugh!

I never knew it was possible to day dream about a car as much as clothes, home decor, and guys (and not necessarily in that order :))!

Today's been a great, great day - and not just because of car dreaming and office pranks - also today: Tommers braked hard and reversed, saying, 'you've got to see this! oh my gosh!' It was jolly Santa Claus! In Robert, LA! We went to the local Dollar General right after lunch so Tom could get some plastic guns for the hoe down tomorrow night (I'm so excited to wear my Target-bought cowboy boots and big ol' belt buckle!), and we asked our boss if he wanted to play kickball with us next week when we organize a lunch time game on the walking trail (don't ask. ok, so we have a "walking trail" around the trailers and pond at our wonderful camp).

Now I'm going to fall asleep with an Audi zipping around my mind and the wind tousling my hair and the windshield preventing the bugs from flying into my ecsatically opened smiling mouth.