Driving to work, something strange caught my eye. There was a car parked well off the highway.  A car for sale.  An old car.  An ugly car.  This car was dark brown.  The kind of brown you would only find in the early 80s.  There was something about this old ugly brown car that intrigued me.  Could it be?  Perhaps.  It looked vaguely familiar to the first car I ever owned.  Yep, it looked a lot like my 1983 4-door Ford Escort hatchback.  The car of my youth.  The car of freedom and frivolity.  The car that smelled just like sweet and sour meatballs, when sunlight hit the backseat and the temperature was just right.  Sure, this car was an ugly brown, while my Escort was an ugly baby blue, but it could be painted.  I kept driving.

Several days later, the car still sat there. Beckoning me.  Asking for me to take a closer look.  Driving up, I could see that the car was in pretty bad shape (much like my Escort), also it was not a Ford, but rather a 1982 Chevy Chevette diesel with somehow only 90,000 miles.  This car was indeed a first cousin of my Escort.  A portal to the past.  A gateway to carefree days.

Then came the kicker, the price. $1,100.  Really?  I was thinking 50 bucks.  $500 tops, but $1,100?  The owner had detailed all of the repairs made over the years, but still $1,100?  When I had purchased my beloved baby blue Ford Escort it was for $300, back in 1990.  Adjust for inflation and you get $554.43 or almost half the price.  Boy, my $300 Escort was looking like a great deal.

Standing there, off the side of the highway, contemplating a negotiating price, reality struck me. What the Hell was I doing?  In an instance, I had stepped out of my car onto the side of the highway right smack into the middle of a midlife crisis moment.  This car could never recapture my youth.  This car was not even sexy or sleek.  It was an early 80s hatchback.  Good lord, this was not good.  I had not been drawn to a Corvette, but rather a Chevette.  The worst of all situations, my midlife crisis had been embodied in the form of an ugly little brown car that could barely sit my whole family.  What would my wife say?  What would be the look on her face?  A mixture of grief, anger, and bewilderment, I imagine.  No, walk away from the relic.  Turn my eyes from the past.

Climbing back into my Ford Freestyle cross-over family wagon of this century, I realized I was worse off than I had ever imagined. Midlife crisis?  No problem, but mine was in need of a serious upgrade.  “Siri, where is the closest Harley Davidson dealer?”