MY RIDE

Losing Natasha was traumatic, especially since I had no desire to spend money on a new car for many years to come.  Being a Toyota I was counting on getting at least 200.000 miles from her.  But alas, it was not meant to be.  I am just thankful that I escaped from the whole deal unscathed, save for my bank account ...

Setting out to buy a car is one of those great unpleasantries of life.  At least as far as I am concerned.  So I wanted to get it done and over with ASAP.  I would have happily gone with another Celica, were it still in production.  I was quite disheartened when a friend told me that Toyota was one of the last auto makers to pull out of the small sports coupe market.  I perused the internet and did find one last hold out - the Mitsubishi Eclipse.  It was a sharp looking car and immediately caught my eye.  I was confident that I had found a worthy successor to Natasha. 

The next day a parishioner was kind enough to take me down to the Mitsubishi dealership in Greensburg.  I looked.  I liked.  I was content to head straight back to Latrobe.  But Mike suggested that since we were in an area with multiple dealerships we should look around a little.  Passing the Ford dealersip I saw the Mustangs and figured it wouldn't hurt to take a look.  One of my ordination classmates had bought a Mustang convertible, his dream car, last year, but they didn't do a whole lot for me.  But as I looked around a 2004 convertible (the 40th anniversary edition) caught my eye.  I reasoned it would be a sensible purchase.  It had only 29.000 miles, had started life as a courtesy car in Hawaii, and the asking price was reasonable.  I took it for a spin and was thinking I'd probably come back Monday and buy it. 

We went into the showroom to discuss numbers and that's when I saw her.  Tungsten gray with black Shelby racing stripes, this particular 2007 GT demanded my attention.  I quickly forgot about the '04 model and knew that this one had to be the one.  I mulled it over throughout the rest of the weekend.  On Tuesday I came back with one of my priest friends, a car nut, to get his opinion and didn't leave till I had taken position of my new ride.

Naming proved a challenge.  I so like the name Natasha that I toyed with the idea of naming this car Natalya, a diminutive form of the name in Russian (a tidbit I remembered from reading Tolstoy's War and Peace in high school).  But then a few days ago, out of the blue, a classic melody from my junior high days wafted through my grey matter.  And I knew I had me a name.  Without further ado (and useless verbiage!) I introduce to you my Sharona ...