Tuesday, February 05, 2008

When are you too old for a pickup truck?

I just decided to trade in a fairly new pick up truck for a smaller SUV. Why? Two reasons. (1) My wife hated the big truck (even thought it was about as cool a truck as anyone might want) because she had difficulty entering and exiting due to her being so short. Also, in her words, "that thing takes up too darn much room in the garage". Bottom line lesson dear readers, is that it's not good for a man to have something his wife doesn't like. (2) I found out during 2007 that my earlier expectations of needing to haul yard and building materials via my pickup truck turned out to have been way over stated. More importantly the gas mileage of the V8 sucked (literally) the large gas tank dry faster than a speeding bullet. Thus, a primary reason for having a truck (the bed) was not applicable for me during 2007; and as gas prices have gone up so high, my wife watched with extreme concern when she paid off the VISA bill with my monthly gas purchases included. So, maybe this all means I have reached an "age" when a truck no longer fits my life style. When I was younger, having a truck was an essential part of my being. I won't tell you how old I am, because I don't want to be responsible for setting a target number of years when one might be considered old. The good thing I guess is that the 4x4 SUV I got sits on a truck frame, so I'm still connected to the truck family. More important is my driving image here in rural SW Virginia should be just fine. I ain't driving some sort of four door, environmentally correct geezer mobile, so those at the local NASCAR track parking lot might want to share a beer with me, as we sit beside their wildly tricked out trucks. It's a Toyota by the way (the new SUV) in case you're interested. My previous trucks were Ford (one each) and two Nissans.