Brent is in construction. Brent drives a little silver hatchback Civic to the job site every day. It's the silver hatchback we bought off Craigslist from a friendly older Aisan man in San Francisco so I could commute to work. Brent says he feels demasculated driving it to work. He was walking the jobsite one day with a couple guys, and they were trying to get one of them to leave his company and join Brent's. "Ya," said one of the guys, "You could make as much as Brent." The potential job candidate responded, "No thanks, I've seen what Brent drives." Brent wants a truck even worse now. And I dream of a minivan (I never thought I'd say that).
But the Millionaire Next Door says that millionaires don't spend a lot of money on cars. And so does Norm, the accounting professor at BYU.
And everyone in town is in construction too. We went to church the first day and met a cabinet maker, a painter, a plumber, even our Bishop is a roofer. The day we moved in, I drove in a few minutes behind the moving van, and in our driveway was a line up of at least seven or eight trucks (we have a great ward, tons of people showed up to help us move). I drove up and parked the Civic at the end of the line.
Our little cars--our Civic and our Jetta--become more of an issue when family comes to town or when we have to haul things. These two situations collided when my brother and his wife and baby flew in so we could build a set and film some capoeira. At one point we had to meet the UPS truck half-way down our dirt road, hoist a giant 10-foot roll of foam matt on top of the car, and have Jon stand up out of the window and hold it with...his arm. Jon also accompanied me to Home Depot to get lumbar, which we barely fit in the car, with me in the passenger seat with my face firmly against the glass and Danny unvisible in his carseat on the opposite corner of the car.
I admit at least once a week I see something on Craigslist I WISH I could fit into my car, but I comfort myself when I fill up by thinking of all the gas money we save.
hillarious! speaking from another family of four who drive a civic and a camry- we totally understand, when anie and daughter came to town we had to drive two cars around all weekend because we didn't all fit... :( but the savings on the gas savings it nice :)
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