Is My Car Gay?

I'm writing this post (and posting it later) from Pies and Pints in Fayetteville, West Virginia. I was very glad to see that someone had added a big red tongue to the smiley faced satellite deesh in Whipple, WV.



I would put Pies and Pints' Thai Pie, a dazzling confection of curry, fresh shrimp, fresh basil and cilantro, up against any pizza on the planet, and I do include Sally's Apizza in New Haven in that estimation. This photo makes me drool uncontrollably.

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Maybe I've been away from Connecticut too long. But these WV hillbillies have figured out the pizza thing in a huge way. Lest you think I am being patronizing, I will add that my ancestral people, the Zickefooses, find their center of abundance in Buckhannon, West Virginia. I am Hillbilly proud. We figger out stuff real good.

I had dinner with some of my awesome WV friends, the Fabulous Flying Heeter Family. The trip to Fayetteville was all I'd hoped.

Why Fayetteville, home of Opossum Creek Resort, site of the famed Flock confab and the New River Birding and Nature Festival? It's just 15 miles from North Beckley, West Virginia, where I bought my first new car in 14 years from Hometown Subaru. Hometown was the only Subaru dealer within three hours' drive that had a model on the lot that I wanted to buy, and would honor the Cash for Clunkers plan. Since I suspected that the bottom would drop out of this $3 billion program within the next ten days, I decided to get myself the car I wanted without further delay. **

**In fact, the program was revved up, ruined and crushed only eight days later.

I left our old green Ford Explorer on the lot with its colorful bumper stickers, its 178,000 miles and all.


Heeter just sent me some new New River Gorge stickers. And I saved my Cathedral Cafe sticker that Wendy sent. Now I have to scratch up an I Love Mountains sticker.
Me and Mini-Me, in shadow.

I made them promise not to take it to the back lot to execute it until after I drove away in my new Subaru Forester. We share so much history, and I have already bawled long and hard over that Ford three times, and I did not want to bawl again.

Saying goodbye one last time in the driveway at Indigo Hill.



Although it occurred to me to throw myself on its hood and really let 'er rip, right there in front of the three skinny salesmen taking their cigarette breaks, I kept it together.

Truth be told I am too high on new car upholstery fumes to care. To get in a car where everything works! Where both back doors open from the inside! Where the back hatch can be unlocked with a key! Where the key in ignition alarm does not ding incessantly even with the key out! Which does not stink of mouse piss! and has no candy wrappers anywhere at all, no DumDums stuck into the carpet, no slashes in the upholstery, no straw woven into the cargo zone, no horsefly carcasses stuck in the windshield crevice! No nasty stains, no mouse nests in the ceiling liner, no mousenestfluff, Hantavirus or mildew in the air conditioner, and only 32 miles on the odometer! Oh! Oh! It is too rich. No one could deserve such largesse.

A car that goes when you tell it to, with verve and alacrity and speed. A car with all-wheel drive that flies over the washboard abs of our gravel roads like silk. A car that corners instead of careens. A car with a moonroof that takes up the whole top, and makes you feel like you're flying. A car that will take me to town six more times on a fill than the old one would; that gets almost twice the number of miles per gallon that the Ford did. A car with heated front seats and sixteen pre-sets for my favorite radio stations. Little matter it that I can only receive five in Appalachian Ohio that aren't earnest Christian music. I can't use this feature, but I'm glad it's there.

But there is another side to my joy. My husband is looking for a rainbow bumper sticker, and one with a lavender equal sign. Also a Meat is Murder bumper sticker. I know him well enough to know he will apply them in the dark of night and let me drive around for days without knowing they are there. I have been the butt of endless jokes from my friends, male and female, having to do with a possible sudden midlife change in my sexual orientation. I keep checking. Despite his shenanigans, I am still nuts about Bill after 18 years together. I have unrequited crushes on Johnny Depp, John Cusack (see a slight resemblance to Bill? Like, separated at birth?) and Adam Lambert. OK, minus a half point for that last one.



Make that a full point.

OK, scratch that one. You know what I'm sayin'.

Really, I don't feel any different. I wanted all-wheel drive, decent fuel economy, six airbags, a moonroof, and a lot of cargo room. Is that gay? If any bumper stickers go on my new car, I'll make a lavender one with a rainbow on it that says, "I just like the car, OK?"


If you're as baffled as I was, just Google "Subaru Forester Lesbian."

Whatever. If you see a green Subaru rolling along an Ohio highway with a raised fist sticking out of the sunroof, that'll be me, driving out loud, driving proud.