This was my first foray into high end luxury, and what a great choice. I didn’t know cars could be so nice. I enjoyed the car but after 3 years the lease ended and I decided to purchase a vehicle rather than lease one. I saw one I liked one day, a 325Ci convertible BMW. I knew Bimmer made a good car, and it looked really cool, so I called my wife and told her about it. She asked “Have you ever had a convertible?” I said no, and she replied “Well then you better get it now because if you get any older you’ll just look stupid driving it”. Ha! She cracks me up. So I drove the car home.
I loved driving the car, but it didn't take long before I started to notice something. People treated me differently on the road. I started getting cut-off a lot and blocked out of traffic and people wouldn’t let me merge. I kept wondering what I was doing wrong to make everyone around me so mad.
A friend put it in perspective when he said that people view Bimmers as a Yuppie car, and people who drive them as stuck up, rich, pompous asses. He said it’s an almost unconscious attitude. He said that since I’d told him a few weeks earlier what was going on he paid particular attention to his own attitudes while on the road. What he found was that if a car did something stupid, like cut him off, his reaction depended on what the car was. If it was a Mercedes or BMW he got mad, but if it was a Buick or something he’d blow it off. Even the tiniest infraction like not using a turn signal would get his ire up if it was a fancy car.
I was amazed at this revelation of societal intolerance towards expensive cars. My friend told me it all has to do with coveting, which is actually two sins in one. You want someone else’s property because you don’t feel they deserve it.
It bothered me a lot that people treated me this way on the road. I didn’t want to be seen as some pompous ass. I’m a very courteous driver. I make mistakes though just like everyone else. The straw that broke the camel’s back was about a year later when one day I was stopped on a four lane road trying to turn left into a restaurant. There were two lanes of traffic to cross, and the lane closest to me had cars in it stopped for a red light. They parted to let me through, which was a surprise, and I didn’t see anyone in the far lane so I began through. As I crossed the first lane of traffic into the second I suddenly saw an SUV coming at me. Instinctively I hit the gas and shot through to the restaurant parking lot. The SUV blared its horn in disgust and I chalked it up to a mistake but no one got hurt.
Wrong, it wasn’t over. The woman driving the SUV decided I must have drove all over town looking for her so I could pull out in front of her and inconvenience her day. She pulled into the parking lot and followed me until I stopped, then yelled out her window “You don’t own the whole road you know! You and your stupid little Bimmer!!”
I tried to apologize. I told her I didn’t see her and that I was very sorry. Her response was “Well you didn’t act like it!”Huh?
Anyway, I’d had enough. I’d been thinking about getting rid of the car for a few months. Not specifically because of how I was being treated on the road, but because I realize that I was over it. I didn’t need a BMW. There were a lot of things I could do with that money besides buy a car. I’d helped feed homeless people who live under bridges downtown and saw first hand that people need help, and help costs money.
I realize now God had been nudging me for a long time about this subject. He gave me a great job and he doesn’t mind if we have nice things, but seriously, does anyone need $45,000 car?
I traded in my BMW last Saturday for a two year old Dodge pickup truck. Now people don’t pay attention to me on the road. They let me into traffic and I don’t get cut off or yelled at. I blend in again because I drive a plain-Jane single cab pickup truck. Well, not completely plain I guess, it has a 5.7 liter Hemi engine. Hee hee. Hey, I’m still a guy, you know!
“God, thank you for your many blessing and lessons. I will strive to be a better steward of your money and use it to help those who can not help themselves. Amen”
No comments:
Post a Comment