At Least They're Committed

Dexter is my midlife crisis. He’s big and brutish and a bit of a bully, but only to people who pick on us. Unlike the 50ish man who gets a red Corvette to compensate for his increased lack of hair (oxymoron!) or his inability to get it up, I have my Ford F150 dual cab, circa 1998, because I’m a chick, I have lots of hair and I am confident that given the correct circumstance my sex drive (and performance for that matter) would be better than average.

We didn’t leave town as quickly as I’d hoped on Friday because getting emissions and the permanent plates took longer than I’d anticipated. That and DS asked us to take him to lunch. Regardless, Dexter is now legal, he is in top running form, he still needs ball joints and struts and I need to repair the slow leak in the transaxel, but otherwise my silver, bad-ass buddy is totally chill.

Driving to and from the meeting in Springs earlier in the week, I was comfortable and confident because I had Dexter. People drove like idiots, of course, on Interstate 25 but I simply thought, “Um, yeah, I’m in a truck. I’m going to win this one, so . . . !” Me chuckling as old people grouse because I’m taking up too much of the parking space. Speed racers thinking twice before cutting ahead of me. People in minivans that I tell myself wish they were more like me. The power, the POWER! I wonder if that’s bad defensive driving? I wonder whether I should care if it is?

I can’t wait to unleash him at the ranch next week. For years I’ve been the one tossed into the back of the truck as we bounced, shifted, jiggled, tilted and tore our way up the mountain. Loses its charm after you land hard on your tailbone the third time in as many seconds. Now, nobody’s going to be throwing the daughter-in-law into the back! Cripe, Dexter even has room for my children and the dog.

Next up? Vanity plates! Dexter or D3xt3er or Dexter1 or Dexter2 or . . .