so i bought another porsche. as if the the first one wasn't enough of a hassle.
this one is older, less practical, louder; and let's not talk about the financial toll... maybe i am nuts - most of my friends think so (except the ones in the porsche club - they gather 'round and congratulate me like a bar full of drunks welcoming an AA member fresh off the wagon). i could have bought a honda, or an acura*, some sensible japanese car that wouldn't sit out in the garage scheming to bankrupt me.
no, no more. that way lies madness. save it for three am insomniac musings when everything seems lost.
how, you may ask, did a productive member of society slip into the underworld of automotive decadence? i'll take the modern cop-out: i blame my dad. he had a succession of porsches during my impressionable youth. a forest green 912, back when i was a wee tot. an ever changing 914/6 in the mid-seventies. a gold 911SC with sport suspension. and finally a 1984 euro 928S with headers (man, that car could get out of it's own way, and sound good doing it). sadly he's left the fold, and now drives a 1997 'vette; but the damage was done, and i grew up lusting after porsches.
but lust was all i could afford, or so i thought. porsches were for rich middle aged men, and i'd never be able to own one.
i was living a lie, but i didn't know it...
early summer, 1994, time to buy a new car. a new car. i was driving the sorriest car on the road, but i'd just started a new job, with a serious jump in pay. i had some money in the bank, and i wanted that new-car smell. actually, i wanted the warranty, and the assurance that i wasn't going to find out that the previous owner had repaired the transmission with bailing wire. i spent sunny afternoons poring over sales brochures, visited dealerships, calculated payments and interest rates. the acura integra was looking like a nice car, sporty yet practical, and i could even afford a few options in my $17,000 budget.
then one day, biking to work, i had a revelation. the clouds parted. the hand of god reached down and wrote across the firmament two fateful words:
