Car Crazy

It was bound, literally, to happen. The world's biggest fascination by people in their cars, lies in the U.S. and NASA has taken note.Other countries take pride in their top notch hunks of metal that go places, but in North America, the auto is an extension of our entire raison d'etre. Apparently, it is gathered, judging by all of the money we spend on the things in a lifetime, significant to human existence. I hardly ever drive mine, but I want it. When I look at it, I feel whole. I don't allow it to be washed by anyone other than me, and when I do, which is all too rarely, sorry, there is a closeness that defies description. When I am behind the wheel, I not only feel the power, I am the power. Well, you car lovers out there, know what I'm saying. While better automobiles may be coming from elsewhere on earth, the U.S. reveres them. One's car is one's status. It's not that said-auto has to be the most expensive or exotic or the fastest, it simply has to be legendary. Think James Bond, or  the movie, "Christine" or "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and hoards of other iconic vehicles in the movie realm. People have fixations about their cars. Where I live, there is a woman who frets constantly about her  outrageously costly, foreign car being possibly scratched or rubbed against by any of our our more mundane ones in the underground parking. She has taken great lengths to make public, that her car, with all of its bells and whistles, including anti theft, camera and collection of electronics inside, as we are warned, is not to be touched. We can look however.  I have to walk by this "special" car to get to my own, never daring to go near hers, but even that frightens her. She has threatened me because I stepped over the line, the painted yellow one, between her larger parking space as I go to mine. She's, otherwise, a  perfectly sane and stable business woman and even attractively dressed. But, it is an example of how attached we become to our cars. They are not only pieces of metal and paint, but also much more. I drive an old sports model, dented here and there and slightly scarred with marks that I have memorized in all fondness. One particularly notable one, was made by an old boyfriend who forgot to consult the rear view mirror, and bashed into a sign damaging my rear fin. I had trusted him to drive my 'Tang that I loved more than him. When I insisted we get out and take a look at what had occurred, for insurance purposes, notwithstanding the salmon selling outlet's sign damage, he did look, licked his finger and rubbed the sizeable dent in my car's skin and shook his head. "Nope, nothing a good buffing wouldn't fix", and got back into the driver's seat. I was stunned, not to to say furious, but after cooling down, chalked it up to experience. It was either boyfriend or car and my social life needed the former more than the latter at the time. It hurt me physically, however, for I intend to keep this car, as my last car. Nasa loves cars, too, apparently. One of my favorite magazines, Scientific American, showed recently, the Tesla model, that is up in space tooling around, showing-off, to anyone or thing that might be in the universe, what's important on our blue planet. I am sure that many of us, don't mind the hubris of it all, but we certainly do not want to be killed by falling space junk, even if it is a Tesla.