I have never attempted to trade in a car when purchasing a new one, mostly due to the fact that the only reason I ever need another car is because my current car has just endured a lingering, unpleasant death and rigor mortis has set in.

 

There is not a big trade-in market for vehicles that appear to have been stricken with a potent strain of vehicular black plague.

 

I believe in extracting every last ounce of heart, soul and rust from my cars. After they have been driven for well over a decade, with slipping transmissions and a host of other distressing maladies, my cars eventually realize that there is no end in sight and, utterly bereft of hope, choose to commit automotive hari-kari.

 

One of the reasons I keep my cars so long is that, in addition to being cheap, I loathe the experience of buying a car. I hate dickering, and buying a car is one of the very few retail purchases in which bartering, bickering, arguing and even caterwauling is an expected and accepted part of the transaction.

 

It is because of this combination of cheapness and fear that I have often ended up with atrocious cars that just sort of became available, often via a friend or relative who was getting rid of a car.

 

That's exactly how I once ended up purchasing a 1977 AMC Pacer, which was voted Ugliest Car of the Year by a major automotive magazine. The AMC Pacer looked like an enormous metal toad and handled with the speed and precision of a rabid armadillo.

 

A few months ago, I was about to commence a reluctant search for yet another car when my wife Dale asked me, "Dave, what car would you really like to have? Let's just say you could buy a car you actually want to drive, what would that car be?"

 

Before my cheapness neurons could kick in, my wild-at-heart gene seized control of my tongue and I uttered the name of a truly impressive car that the Chrysler Group recently released. I could barely believe I actually said it out loud.

 

I expected my wife to burst into unbridled fits of laughter, but Dale replied, "I think you should get one."

 

I consider myself a fiscal tightwad, but my wife actually sets the official U.S. Department of Commerce standard for frugality. If we need light bulbs, and they are not on sale, she will seriously consider rendering deceased farm animals and making candles out of the tallow.

 

"You can't be serious," I said.

 

But she was. She turned on the computer and commenced downloading information and photos of various models with their assorted options.

 

Before I was quite sure what was happening, I was fully armed with pricing information and actually e-mailing a local dealer about the possibility of buying The Car That Must Not Be Named lest you be tempted to engage in un-Christian envy.

 

"This can't be happening," I said to Dale.

 

"Dave, you have had a series of cars you didn't really like. I would like you to have a nice one. "

 

"But the cost . . . " I protested.

 

"You are worth it," she said.

 

So I have a new car. Sort of. We bought a newly used one so my cheapness DNA would not cause my spleen to have seizures every time I drove.

 

The Bible talks about learning to be content whether you are "abased or abounding." I have done a lot of abasing over the years. It is kind of fun to abound. But whether I drive a cool car or a clunker, my identity is defined by the fact that I am a child of God. And in that sense, we can all abound.

 

By Dave Meurer, New Man's award-wining humorist and the author of Mistake It Like a Man (Multnomah). Visit him online at davemeurer.net.