nichtszusagen

1. Mandy. A 1980 AMC Spirit. First car I ever owned. Bought in 1982. Got a used car loan at a whopping 19% interest. It had the big tires, and was a really heavy, solid car, yet it got about 30 mpg. When we moved to Germany, I sold it to my cousin, who in turn sold it to his sister's boyfriend, who ended up being killed in it in 1986 when an elderly driver ran into him. He'd have been fine if he'd been wearing his seatbelt--it was being thrown from the car that killed him.

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2. Fritz. A 1980 VW Rabbit diesel. Carl bought this while we were dating, in 1984. It wouldn't start unless the seatbelts were fastened--something which really worried the used car dealer until we figured it out. It also took a while, and a rather expensive set of glow plugs to figure out the peculiarities of driving a diesel. It was a rattletrap, and puffed black smoke while driving up hills. We ended up selling it for $100, only to find that the only thing really wrong with it was that one of the engine mount bolts was broken, which caused all the vibration which caused the rest of the problems.

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3. 1985 Audi 4000S. Our first new car. Thanks to a great exchange rate, it cost $10,000 at a time when the same car was selling for over half again as much in the States. We didn't name this one. We tried a few times, but nothing stuck. It was always "the Audi." I couldn't find a picture in color, but it was dark blue. It had a great, deep trunk. We loved it, but on retrospect, it was a lemon. A couple of months after we bought it, the electrical system shorted out, and it was in the garage for 3 weeks while they replaced the entire thing. Carl had to replace the door handles at one point. The worst, though, was the oil light, and the *#$@* buzzer. We kept taking it back to the shop, and they kept telling us it was because we used "inferior American oil" in it, and they could check, but it would probably require replacing the oil pump at a cost of several hundred Marks. After living with it for far too long, we finally told them to go ahead and fix it--it was the freaking sensor, and cost DM50 to replace. Grrr. The Audi was stolen in 1991 in Ann Arbor. It was recovered in Detroit a couple of months later, completely trashed, but the insurance company had already paid us for it, and we didn't really want it back.

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4. 1988 Mustang GT Convertible. We'd paid off the Audi and Carl had been promoted, so we wanted a new car. Went to the dealer on post, and looked at Mustangs. Asked about convertibles, but they were too expensive. So we decided to settle for a T-top. We filled out all the paperwork to order one. The next day, the dealer called us--we'd forgotten to sign the order. And oh, by the way, he'd found a convertible for us. It was new, but the previous year's model, so there was a big discount on it. That, coupled with the $1500 servicemember's discount, made it about the same price as the one we'd ordered. We jumped on it, of course. Unfortunately for the dealer, the $1500 discount had already been deducted from the price he'd quoted us, but since we had signed the papers this time, we got the additional discount. (don't feel bad--it was AAFES, not an independent dealer) We only had the car for a year when it was stolen in San Antonio.

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5. 1988 Mustang GT Convertible. The insurance company gave us cash for the first one (we had a car loan for it, but the interest rate was 15%, so we paid it off with a signature loan from a German bank at 9%, so there was no lien on it), more than we'd actually paid for the car, and we found this one, used, and fully loaded, to replace it. It originally had a white top, but when thieves cut the top to steal the radio, we had it replaced with black, which I think looks much nicer. We had to replace the clutch a couple of times, and the a/c needs fixing, but OMG, I love this car. It was very, very nice to drive on the Autobahn. We've still got it--it's in the garage in San Antonio now, damnit--and it only has 80,000 miles on it, and still looks like new.

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6. 1986 VW Passat. It was this shape, but not this color--it was a dark gray. We bought this as a second car when we moved to Heidelberg in 1992, and paid way too much for it. At that time, only a couple of years after the wall came down, used cars were at a premium, most of them making their way to the former East Germany. It needed shocks, badly, which gave me a great excuse for a couple of months to drive the Mustang to work. (I had the longer commute, and the Passat, ugly as it was, got better gas mileage). We sold it for about what we paid for it when we bought our next car...

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7. ...a 1994 Plymouth Voyager. We resisted and resisted buying a minivan. We'd finally paid off the signature loan for the Mustang, so we were in the market again. We were actually thinking of looking for another Mustang--getting his & hers cars, when we found out we were expecting our 3rd child. Well. No way you can fit 5 people in a Mustang. So we started looking for station wagons. The AAFES dealers in Heidelberg were horribly condescending, and kept trying to steer us toward inexpensive sedans--Carl was a captain at the time, making decent money, but we'd gone car shopping in jeans & sweatshirts, and they assumed we couldn't afford more. So we went back to Kaiserslautern, where we'd bought the Mustang, and encountered a very persuasive salesman who talked us into the something we were determined to avoid. It really was a great vehicle, once we got over the stigma of owning a minivan. It had built-in child seats, which was just perfect. And it could go 180 kph on the Autobahn. We sold it just before we moved back to the States to a guy in Italy, and boy, was that a Papierkrieg.

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8. Moby. 1997 Ford Expedition, 4wd. When we moved back to the States, we went directly to Michigan to my mom's house. The plan was to buy a car--we needed one, the Mustang was being shipped--then leave the kids with my mom and drive to San Antonio, find a house, then come back and pick up the kids. We'd intended to get another minivan, having been convinced of their utility. We'd done some research, and settled on the Windstar, or maybe a Grand Voyager. We'd seen Expeditions in magazines, and while we lusted after seating for 9, we thought it was just way too huge. Again, we found a persuasive salesman, who let us test-drive an Expedition, and Carl was completely hooked. It took me a little longer. Being Michigan, it had 4 wheel drive, and the extreme weather package, and the bench seat in front, so it would carry 9. Four years later, it was still going strong, but it was paid off, and we were lusting after dual a/c--San Antonio tends to be a little warm in the summer--so Carl drove to the dealer one day, intending to just look, and maybe price a new one, and came home with....

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   Moby II, a 2001 Ford Expedition, also 4wd, also white. (Geddit? Moby? big white whale?) The only difference was that Moby II had dual a/c and bucket seats in front, reducing the seating capacity to 8. Moby II was totaled 3 hours into our trip to TTP when we were rear-ended in a construction-zone traffic jam. None of us were even mildly injured, and Carl did an amazing job of driving after the crash, keeping us from hitting anyone else, or getting hit again.

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9. Moby III. 2003 Ford Expedition. When we got back from TTP, we needed a new vehicle in a hurry. We did some research, but honestly, the Expedition was the only vehicle that fit our criteria: beaucoup seating, 4wd, and the ability to pull our 30-foot travel trailer which was sitting up at Canyon Lake, with the month-long limit expiring. Being Texas, it wasn't easy to find a 4wd in stock (which surprised me--really, what's the point of having a 2-wheel drive SUV?). And the only white one we could find in the area was an Eddie Bauer version. Now, we'd been ridiculing the Eddie Bauer version, but, damnit, the new XLTs had that nasty gray plastic crap around the bottom, while the Eddie Bauer's plastic crap was gold. I swear the deciding factor, though, was the leather seats. Carl has a bit of a thing for leather. The demise of Moby II was a blessing in disguise, though. The redesign makes Moby III handle much better, and made me happier about bringing it to Germany. It's still a PIA to find parking for it here, though.

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10. 1999 Saturn. When our daughter turned 16, we wanted another car. No way were we going to set a teenager loose with a giant vehicle like Moby, or one with as much power as the Mustang. Besides which, the Mustang would be a huge PIA to try to learn to drive stick on--it has a very stiff clutch. We wanted a mid-size sedan, something sturdy, with decent gas mileage, and this is what we came up with. It was totaled a couple of months before Moby II, when our daughter and our youngest son were rear-ended at a stop sign. The car was a mess--they were completely fine. So we replaced it with...

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11. ... a 2001 Saturn. She's still driving it.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

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12. 1990 Mitsubishi Colt. Remembering the problem we'd had finding used cars here, when we moved back to Germany, we tasked Carl's brother with finding us something to drive while we waited for Moby to be shipped. This is what he came up with. It was a decent little car, and with the back seat folded down, you could fit a heck of a lot of stuff in it. Good thing, too, because of all the furniture-type items we had to buy before Moby got here. Carl had to do a lot of work on it, but by the time we sold it to a young airman, it was in good shape & pretty reliable. When we got it, it had a couple of bull decals on the back. I thought they were amusing--Carl found them terribly embarrassing, and they disappeared one day.

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13. 1989 Audi 80. A co-worker of Carl's was leaving, and wanted to keep this car until the day he left, then junk it. Carl talked him into selling it instead, but when it wouldn't pass inspection, he just signed it over to Carl. It really didn't need a whole lot of work--the exhaust system was clogged and the fan was broken--and after about $500 worth of repairs, it's an okay 2nd car. The boys are much happier not being stuck in the bitty back seat of the Colt, especially now that the teenager's taller.

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• The "good reader" catches all the little plot and character clues the author put in the book, and ignores all the things that are just there for effect.


• The "good reader" reads the descriptions carefully and builds a picture of the setting and the characters in her mind.


• The "good reader" remembers the date in the chapter heading and doesn't have to flip pages to figure out how much time has elapsed between chapters.


• The "good reader" doesn't have any trouble whatsoever distinguishing between Mike, Mark, and Mack regardless of how thoroughly they're each described.


• Above all, the "good reader" reads the book the author intended to write.

1. Duchess. A honey-colored cocker spaniel. I was 5, and she was either a Christmas or a birthday gift, possibly a combo (my birthday is close to Christmas). She was a puppy from a litter my aunt's black cocker spaniel Heidi had. She had a little house in the garage, and periodically had puppies, which, contrary to every fiction book out there, we never got to witness.


2. Daisy. One of Duchess's puppies. Nobody knew who the father was, but he was a pretty big dog, because Daisy turned out pretty big, too.


3. Tello. A Chinese dwarf hamster. Or at least that's what we thought it was. The descriptions I can find online sound all wrong, and don't look right, either. It looked more like a Winter White hamster, but it must not have been that, either. Our daughter, who was 3 at the time, named it. Tello didn't last long--after only a week, it acted as if it had a cold, its breathing was more & more labored, and it died. So we took it back to the pet store, where the proprietor told us that this kind of hamster shouldn't have a water bottle--that it should get all its water from moist food, like bits of apples, or it would get pneumonia and die. Now he tells us. (this is why I'm guessing it was some other kind of hamster, or even some other kind of rodent, because all the hamster sites say they need water bottles)
   


4. Tello 2. Thus armed with knowledge, we took our daughter over to the hamsters to pick a new one. We were a little worried about picking one, because we'd told her we were taking Tello to the pet store because he was sick. (yeah, yeah--you should always tell your kids the truth, and the death of a pet is a perfect opportunity to teach them about life and death. sue me. she was 3.) No problem, though, because she pointed to the hamster that looked least like Tello 1, and said "look! It's Tello! He comes to me!" And that was that. We had him for another year and a half, getting all his water from bits of apple and carrot, gave him to a friend when we moved, and he lived another year after that.
   


5. Sage. I've looked and looked, and can't find a picture on this computer, darnit. She's a beautiful cat, anyway. If I can get Dagny to send a picture, I'll post it. Here's the picture. Kind of dark, but you get the idea. Half tabby and half Siamese. Our daughter's consolation prize for getting a baby brother. She was a gift from my mom, who gave her the name. She stayed in San Antonio with Dagny, and at nearly 17, the vet says she's as healthy as a cat half her age.
   


6. Charlene Kitten. Never allow Carl to go to a pet store unsupervised, particularly not with a child in tow. Charlene Kitten was a long-haired calico, a gorgeous cat, named by Dagny. She was also a dominatrix. Sweet at first, then she became a bully. For over a year, she forced Sage to stay in the basement. Every time Sage would poke her head over the top of the stairs, Charlene Kitten would chase her back down. When Charlene Kitten escaped and lived in the trees in the backyard for 3 weeks (we could see her, we just couldn't catch her), Sage purred continuously. We finally gave her away to friends who didn't have a cat--she obviously needed to be an only cat.


7. Atra. A box turtle, also named by Dagny. It didn't have a lot of personality, but she loved it.


8. Diva. Another cocker spaniel. She came to us via friends, who'd found her astray in Corpus Christi. They searched for her owners for 3 months, and had wanted to keep her, but she liked kids so much they wanted to find a family with kids for her.
   





9. A succession of hamsters. Regular ones this time. Rex, then Max & Moritz, then Odie & Nermal. Points for anyone who can figure out where all the names came from--Dagny named them again. Rex and Max died of natural causes. Moritz was an escape artist, and Diva got him. Nermal was another escape artist, and we were more vigilant with him, putting the cage in the tub so he couldn't go far. Unfortunately, he was also suicidally brave or adventurous, and he climbed a towel hanging over the edge of he tub and made his escape, only to get slimed to death by dog drool. Odie was fat, lazy, and, in the end, blind, which made him freak out when anyone came near, and he'd bite them. Either that, or he was just such a pig that he had to test everything to see if it was edible.
   


10. Godzilla Jr. An iguana. I feel guilty about this one. I didn't know how to take care of an iguana, so I left it up to Carl & the boys. They didn't know how to take care of it, either. Mom's new rule: no new pets until you research how to care for them. Yes, I should have made the rule after Tello1. I said I felt guilty.


11. Ruby. A rat. This was rescued from a friend of Dagny's, whose mom threatened to kill it. We had her for about 2 years.


12. Burnsie. A miniature dachshund. Dagny gets another consolation prize pet--this one for having to stay in San Antonio while we move to Germany. Points again for anyone who guesses where the name comes from. She's not much of a guard dog--she'll roll over and submit to even smaller dogs. But she's great company.
    




13. Gamera. A water turtle. And yes, they did research. Got books from the library, looked online, and talked to their uncle, who has two, and who will inherit Gamera when we move back to Texas.
    

"Why were women supposed to take hormones in order to be horny? Why weren't men pressured to take hormones to make them able to have three thoughts and not have two of them be about sex?"

• One is, of course, variety in partners, which is where cheating comes in, as well as swinging, threesomes, and other varieties of open relationships. Doing the same sorts of things in the same sorts of places, but with different people.
  
• Another is variety in place, like the dining table or the car. Same person, same kind of sex, different places.
  
• And then there's variety in the act itself, which is why we've had a great monagamous sex life for 22 years. I suspect part of the longevity of our marriage is due to the fact that we both find our sexual variety in the same way. Well, that, and good imaginations. Anyone who says there's a limited number of ways to have sex is just not trying.
• Any combination of the above.