Certified geeks

“Lucy, would you like to go for a walk, or for a ride in the new car?” (Silent thought.) “Would you like to go for a walk?” “No. Vroom, vroom!”

That actual conversation this afternoon (see accompanying video, below), proves that I’m not the only one excited about our new family car, a used 2004 Toyota Prius. This is one of them new-fangled hybrid vee-hickles, and it’s just about as much cool as I can stand.

Unusually attentive readers may recall our “sale of our ancient 1990 Honda Civic”:/news/2006/getting-thrifty/ about two years ago. Even at that time, we knew the day would soon come for our 1992 Civic — but who knew it would last another two years? With 178,000 miles on it, it certainly could have died any day. Although its maintenance problems have been few, they’ve been increasing, and we’ve increasingly been reluctant to sink any money into it.

So now we’ve finally traded it in, gotten a fantastic deal on this recent Prius, and we’re tickled pink — or rather, _blue_ (as you can see from the photo). We discovered, through no virtue of our own, how smart it is to visit a used car dealer during the last week of the year, on a snowy day that has kept other buyers away. These guys were ready to deal! We are so thankful for the chance to upgrade our wheels within our modest means. Neither of us has ever owned a car this new, to say nothing of the high tech.

We know there’s lots of debate about whether hybrids can save you money in the long term, but we think it might, and it _certainly_ will use less fossil fuel and contribute less to pollution and global climate change. (It’s so cool when you’re cruising along, or stopped at a light, and the gas engine just shuts off entirely….)

Anyway, I’m totally geeked out, and I’ve got many happy hours ahead of me just reading the manual! We hope you’ll come for a ride with us sometime!

p{color:gray}. Note: If you can’t see the video, you may simply need to update your free “QuickTime”:http://www.apple.com/quicktime/ plugin.