I managed to talk myself into spending some of my rapidly dwindling savings on a car. A cheap car, one likely to break down and become useless, but it fulfills the basic requirements:

• it is not silver
• it has a manual transmission
• it is a station wagon

Given that I am not a lesbian, and the car I bought was cheap, can you guess what it is? Right. A dark blue 2003 VW Jetta station wagon. When I brought it to my mechanic, even before the inspection, he said — “a 1.8T with 100k miles? You like to suffer, eh?” But — knock wood — no problems so far, save that the OEM stereo can’t be cleanly removed, so as to install an iPod adapter, so I ordered a new old OEM stereo. I could’ve gone with a fancy new aftermarket stereo, but really? Have you seen what they look like? Too, the MONSOON stereo has a tape deck, the better to rock out to my old cassettes of Crucial Youth.

Mobile Tony of Tony’s Mobile One is going to come round with a crowbar and an iPod adaptor this week, at which time I can start working through my In Our Time backlog the two hours a week I’m in the car.

To recap then: I quit a highly remunerative job at Apple to start a software company, I commute by trolley to my office, and I have no income, and I rarely drive anywhere. What better time to buy a seven year old finicky German car with a notoriously unreliable engine? You will likely not be surprised that I was also considering an E39 M5, but all the ones I liked were silver.