Wheels of Fire!

I'm jonesing for a new ride.
I don't need a new car, but I want one. This happens to me all the time and I used to give into the siren call of the world's most expensive perfume, ( that new car smell), more often than Bill Clinton succumbed to the charms of a certain flesh toned humidor.

"Cars are nothing but a liability" was the mantra my Dad attempted to impress upon my brother and me even as he went aground on the shoals of the latest chrome from Detroit nearly every year. His excuse was that he traveled for a living and thus "wore out" a car annually. He didn't fool us. He was hooked on the "good smell um" being peddled by the Motor City. It's a cruel addiction.

Warren Buffett was never hustled out of his moola by the car pushers. In his early years of managing money, and in the years after he had made millions, he was famed for driving around Omaha in an old Volkswagen Beetle. He often mentioned that $25,000 compounding at 20% a year would come to $958,439 after twenty years, and to Warren that was just way too much money to pay for a car. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why he's LOADED.

During the twentieth century I was a drinker. Several friends and family members suggested that I lay off the sauce for a century; so I am currently in dry dock. When I drank I would often find myself in bars where, more often than not, I got what appeared to be good advice. I don't remember the name of the barroom Plato who passed on these pearls of wisdom but they have served me well in the past when new car fever was upon me. He said, " The first week you own a new car driving it is better than the best sex you have ever had. The second week of driving your new car is better than a fine meal at a five star restaurant. The third week...it's just your ****ing car."


I'm thinking of something maybe in "Hello Officer" red.