When, in the course of parental events, it becomes necessary for a people without children at home to 
advance from that automobile subordination in which they have hitherto remained, they must trade in the mini-van. This is probably why Cars.com was invented: for Boomers to get rid of zillions of no-longer-necessary mini-vans.
I know that I should want to replace my MomVan with a hybrid: it's The Right Thing to Do. I know. And the Prius is sort of cool-looking, and very very Hollywood. But, um, that's my head talking. My heart says something quite different. It says: It's your turn for a FunCar!! Now, I don't really like driving; my idea of hell is a four-hour car trip. And I don't need a red convertible to make driving fun. But, still . . .
I tried a Camry Hybrid. It was zippy. And had a neat GPS system with a fancy display of how the
engine was working, on gas or battery, that was so incomprehensible yet mesmerizing that I was afraid I'd crash the test car while staring at the screen. And I felt, well, righteous, driving this car. A kind of I'm-Greener-Than-Thou superiority, though not quite as grandiose as if I were driving a Prius, since this Camry doesn't shout HYBRID ALERT. It's much more modest about its hybrid status--you have to get really close to tell that it's a battery-powered car.
But, um, still. It's not really fun to drive. I feel guilty thinking this way. Which is probably why I dreamed that it cost $140 to fill new car with gas. I guess I didn't buy a hybrid in this dream. Also, I declared that I was no longer driving anywhere, that I'd be taking cabs from now on.
So, don't tell the Nissan dealer, but this is the car of my dreams. (Though it wasn't actually in that 
dream.) I want a Murano. Maybe red. With the Bose stereo and the GPS system and the camera view of the rear when it goes in reverse. I want the leather, heated seats and the 6-CD changer. I'm a bad person: this is a "crossover SUV." I hate SUV's and everything they stand for and especially the people who drive them. So why do I want this one?
Maybe I got confused by the salesguys at the four dealerships we visited. They clouded my mind, so it was barely functioning. Then, one of them, I think it was Tony, said this, to try to get me to trust in him and to believe what he was telling me: "I know I'm a car salesman, and it's something I have to overcome."
There's an existential message in that sentence, somewhere. But I don't know what it is.
