the perfect car

written on: Sunday, February 22, 2009 5pm

I didn’t do any of the things that I thought of doing before the weekend. I just felt too tired to want to get out of our house. All I did was sleep, eat, and read, text, some internet surfing when there was a wifi signal, take a bath and sleep again.

Saturday morning I woke up with an aching back and nape. I thought I might be having either a high blood or low blood pressure. Before the day ended, ever dependable Manang massaged my back. Her diagnosis was that the back pain was brought about by “lamig”. I agreed. I said maybe it’s because of the extreme temperatures. It’s very cold inside the office the whole day but when I go home at night it’s so hot.

I planned to visit my brothers but they were gone. The three of them drove to Tarlac to bond in the name of sabong. When I learned that all of them left I just sighed aloud “daya, di man lang nila ako sinama”. Anyway, it’s for the boys…

The weekend has been great for me. It helped me to clear my head and to get on with my decision to take things in a stride. I have my friends to thank for. While I was reading a magazine I saw an ad of Fundador, it says “Pain is nothing when bound by true friendship”. I can’t help but to agree. It’s really a blessing to have friends that will always be there especially when the going is tough.

While I was looking for something to shift my attention to I found a magazine. It’s Top Gear mag of kuya Ronie. I expected the magazine to contain nothing but technicalities about cars but it wasn’t. There were many articles that are very easy to read. It’s a good variation to read on from the male perspective. I usually read articles written by females since I can relate to them more easily. The stories were awesome, made me want more to have a car for myself someday.

I liked the article entitled “The perfect car”. The article talks about the authors search for the perfect vehicle or first of all if one do exist. He said there are cars that are fast and nice to look at but have low fuel efficiency and are high maintenance. There are cars that help save on gas, environment friendly but the driver may want to quickly get away from it the moment he has parked it because he doesn’t want people to know that it’s his car because the car doesn’t look good.

So I wonder what sells, is it the looks or the qualities?

Choosing which car to buy can be a tough decision to make, especially when the money that will be used is a hard earned cash. Money is harder to spend when it was earned the hard way. That is one of the things that I have learned in my OJT.

Anyway, back on the car, before, when it comes to car I only look up to the European high end brands like Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, and Jaguar, also of course on Chevrolet. But when I read on the mag about the dependability of Honda my view was changed. Honda has sold more than 10, 000 units in the past years but until now, not a single warranty was claimed. It only means that Honda is a good choice. It is guaranteed to last at a fraction of the price.

I also gathered that a Ferrari costs more or less 37M pesos. Ok. I’m very much contented with the Ferrari Enzo wallpaper in my computer back in San Luis. I will never ever spend that much for a car. Even if I have no high hopes in having that much money in the first place.I think its unreasonable and a display of injustice to sport that uber expensive car in the poverty stricken streets of the Philippines.

One of my hobbies here in Manila is to look in the inner lanes of the road especially along Edsa and in Shaw. I look at the cars and count how many cars I can guess its brand correctly from a distance. If it has a silver peace sign in front it is a Mercedes, if a golden plus symbol it is a Chevy, if it has a circle with a blue and white combo it is a BMW.

Those three brands are the luxury cars I often see here. I saw a Jaguar just once and gosh, ang ganda. When I looked around the jeepney where I was I saw the other passengers looking at the car too.

When we were in QC my main mode of transportation was the MRT. I would always look outside when the train is along Ortigas and Santolan because the showrooms of Porsche, PGA, Audi, Mazda, Subaru and Ford are lined up there. In my mind I say, one day, I will be in one of those shops choosing my car. Well, I was just doing some wishful thinking. Nothing’s wrong with having dreams, right? I am not sure whether it will ever come true. But for the mean time I am contented having it as a past time.