As a guy, I have always been prone to getting attached to my cars. Before you question that statement, just consider that men approach cars so differently than women. We give them feminine names. We care for them as if they were are pets. We even speak of them in sexual connotations, just don’t ask me to get into specifics on that one. Men know what I mean. But even with all this said, I have always espoused to a set belief when it came to cars. I would date my car for two to three years, five years tops if I was really in love with her, and then I would trade her in for a slightly newer model with fewer miles and that shiny sexier frame and then start up a new love affair.

If only I were a car. If that were true, I could trade myself in for a newer model with a few less years on it, hell, maybe a lot fewer years on it. As I approach my next birthday, a birthday as yet not named, my body is showing signs of the well driven years I have put on her. Oh, she still tries to have that new car smell and sure, she shines up real nice when we are going out on the town, but truth be told, she lacks some of that get up and go she had when I first started driving her. She’s a little slower out of the gate in the morning and her tires are looking worn. Don’t get me wrong, I suspect she still has some good years left in her, but you know, if only I could trade her in.

When I posed this idea to my wife, she immediately wanted to know how many models I was planning on stepping up and just how low a number of years was I considering? I assured her I was intending to be reasonable, maybe a couple of model years up and oh maybe somewhere between thirty-five to forty years on her. Not too surprisingly, after visualizing the new me, she was all in.

Now, if only I were a car,