I’ve said this before: I could send my kid to his school for the next nine years or I could buy a new car every year for the next nine years, or a really nice car every two years, which might be a bit more reasonable.  My current vehicle is old enough to drive itself and has 150,000 miles on it.  It looks good for its age, honestly, but anything even vaguely resembling a close inspection will reveal certain, oh, let’s call them beauty marks that make it clear that if I tried to trade this thing in I might well have to pay the dealers to take it off my hands.

I went to pick the boy up today and there was apparently some sort of athletic event going on, because the lot I parked in, which was usually empty, was full.  I get a weird sort of class anxiety whenever we go to big school events because you can tell from the parking lot that most of the people who send their kids here have tons more money than I do.  (And I should be clear: everyone there has always been perfectly nice.  This shit’s in my head.)

However!   It is mid-January.  In northern Indiana.  Everyone’s car is covered with road salt and sand and shit and looks like hell.  No one’s car looks nice in northern Indiana in mid-January.  Go ahead; take it to the car wash.  It’ll look like shit by the time you get it home.

I glanced at the car behind me, a dark blue or black station-wagon-lookin’ thingy, as I was heading into the building.  See?  I thought.  That person’s car looks like a piece of shit, just like mine.  You’re being ridiculous.  Stop it.  Those folks are like you.  Nobody rich drives a station wagon.

And then I got a closer look at the hood of the car.

Who else had no idea that you could spend a hundred thousand motherfucking dollars on a station wagon?

The end.