The Porsche

There was a time when we drove a somewhat obscure Eastern-European manufactured car. It had no luxuries; you almost had to bring your own chair to sit on.But it got us where we wanted to be on 4 wheels so the (if only)luxury was that we didn't have to walk.

"If you had a choice out of all the cars in the world, what would you drive?" I asked hubby one day. "Oh that would be a Porsche, for certain" he said. His eyes were beginning to shine, his favorite dream started. "But we have a car, and what is so different about a Porsche then?" I asked. "Ah," he said, "There is a world of difference, for one thing it goes a lot faster than the one we got now". I had to agree, we hardly went over 50 km. per hour. "And a Porsche looks a lot better" he said. Again I agreed. "You see, Porsche-people are a completely different breed" he said, warming up on the idea. That shook me a little. Because how would you recognize a Porsche-driver if you ever met one in the street, but minus the car?

But it became clear, we needed a "new" car. Of course my husband knew exactly the place for such a thing. He had spotted the Porsche-dealer a long time ago.And so we found ourselves in that particular car-yard, crammed with Porsche's. The salesman shot out of his office and sidled up to us. "I want a red one" I said. "Or a black one, that looks good with anything" I am always mindful of my wardrobe you see. There were plenty of them in all colors, however not a lot fitting our budget. The salesman pointed to a canary-yellow one. "That fits in with your budget" he said somewhat disappointed. And so my husband kicked the tires a couple of times (a sure sign he has no idea about cars) and the deal was done.

The misery started on the way home. When you drive a bright yellow Porsche, apparently the whole Police-force is out to stop you at every street-corner. Even if we had wanted to speed, we couldn't because of all these hold-ups, which lasted at least 10 minutes each. A trip of 15 minutes lasted hours. But finally we made it home. The next morning hubby wanted to go for a real long drive. When I got in I looked at him in amazement."What is that on your head?" I asked. " a cap, all Porsche-drivers wear them" he said. The hood went down and we set off. My husband enjoyed himself immensely; I somewhat less. It was a cloudy overcast sort of day and after 10 minutes my hair looked an absolute mess. I was chilled to the bone. My husband found a long stretch of road completely empty of traffic and put his foot down. The car shot forward and I was holding on for dear life. "This is the life" He yelled over the powerful engine. Yes, sure but my life was shortening by the second. It also started raining, which is not enjoyable in an convertible.While I was frantically looking around for a can to start bailing water my husband was equally frantically looking for the button to get a roof over our heads.

Of course he wanted to show his Porsche off and so on a sunny day we decided to go to a nearby beach-town. So again the roof went down, sunglasses on the nose and so we arrived. The streets were teeming with tourists on a day out. Certainly no speeding here, as a matter of fact we crawled along.

I noticed that people were pointing at the car and what I thought was waiving. We smiled and waived back. Ah people are so friendly we told each other, and they even made way for us to let the car go through. We felt like Royals. However, after a while it did occur to me that they were not waiving, but pointing. Finally we stopped the car and got out. When we looked behind us there was a trail (probably going back to our house) of petrol! If one of us, or even the tourists had lit a cigarette and carelessly thrown the match on the ground, we would have had a whole trail of flames! And of course, the car would have blown up with us in it.

A month later we sold the car to a mechanic, for half the price we paid for it. But my husband has had his "Porsche-experience" and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I want to make clear that this experience is in no way the fault of Porsche. It was our responsibility to have a second-hand car checked by a mechanic before we bought it, and we didn't.