The Technical Writing Express (TWE) is a 2008 Nissan Versa. When we bought it, gasoline was over $4/gallon, and I was driving a 5.4L V8-powered F-150 SuperCrew pickup back and forth to work. It reliably swallowed $90 every eight days.
So, this was purchased as my commuter car. It won a face-off with a Honda Fit and a Toyota Yaris. I slightly preferred the way the Fit drove, but when I lost the transaxle battle with Lea and couldn’t get manual shift, I cared much less. The Versa got the nod then because a) it was the only one of the three with an instrument panel that didn’t look like it should say Fisher-Price on it; and b) it had the most back seat room. (It really is surprisingly roomy.)
It’s not a very stylish thing. It’s downright dorky, actually. It’s bizarrely tall and narrow, like Deputy Dawg’s car. It looks like something a perpetually irritated bow-tied college professor would get out of, scattering papers from his battered leather briefcase. It’s a tool; an appliance.
But it’s still my ride, you know?
It has accumulated a few wounds that I’d have probably fixed on a nicer car. A guy cutting grass slung a rock into the left rear door on Zierdt Rd. Ding. A guy installing a new spring on our garage door first scratched up my trunk lid with it. (Usually I put the Upward magnet over that.) There are two parking lot wounds on the right front door. There are a couple of other things, here and there.
But mostly, it’s still presentable, which is why it really irritated me this morning when I hit a scrap of truck tire on 565 and it removed a piece of the car. You know those you-didn’t-get-foglights dummy plugs in your front bumper? When I got to work, the right one was gone.
The car is silver and those dummy plugs are black, so the glaring silver hole left behind really looked like hell.
It’s obviously not a big deal, big picture. The only other damage is a bit of a paint chip, and the front bumper cover had plenty of little ouchies already. I had the part ordered ten minutes after I sat down.
Then, the anal-retentive part of me said “hey, when you get home, why not mask that off and paint it black in there? Look a lot better.”
The sensible part replied “because that’s silly; the part will be here in a week.”
That’s where I had it in my head most of the day.
But then I got home, and there was a roll of masking tape sitting on the bar.
It’s a sign.
OK, so I took ten whole minutes and did it, and I have to say it looks good enough that I wish I’d taken a before photo. It doesn’t catch your eye at all now. (Click for larger; it really does look pretty good!)
It’s just a silly little clown car.
But it carries awesomeness every day, baby.
You might also like:
- Restoring perspective behind the wheel
I haven’t had a car accident of any kind since December 1993. My streak came extremely close to endi… - Thursday miscellanea #1
I’m not pulling my WmWms weight this week, boys and girls. I apologize. I started the week sick, and… - Tamiya disappoints me right out of the chute
Last year Nathan got interested in radio control cars, and said interest happened to coincide with a… - The Versa cometh
We drove to Florence tonight, which is where my old college friend Micah is working these days, and … - Don’t you love it when you…
…need something from another part of the house, so you go over there, and then you see something e…