Cars (not the Pixar kind)

I need a new car. Badly. The Truck of Malfunction (TOM) will always hold a special place in my heart (specifically the place reserved for things that barely work and feel like a circle of hell when you sit in them during the summer in Dallas) but I want to move on.

I had a similar spell once before (I want to say it was back before Christmas, maybe? God, I have no sense of the passing of time anymore.) and I had rationalized it out perfectly. I picked out the car(a sensible and economical Used Jetta) that fit into my mind and didn't make me hyperventilate thinking about the debt. Then two days before I was ready to go pick the car up, I ended up with several unexpected big bills, got spooked, and scrapped the plans entirely.

Since then I've never been able to get the rationalization back to where I was able to commit to more than $5,000 of debt without spontaneously combusting in a parking lot somewhere. Lately, though, with summer back in force, my raise finally kicking in, and my apartment move complete, rationalization has been easy to come by.

So easy, in fact, that now we've swung all the way across the manic-depressive scale and I have to keep talking myself off the ledge of buying something completely outlandish. Because I'm usually so conservative and have to justify every little thing, there's never been too much of a chance that I'll go nuts and blow all my credit in one fell swoop. With the small pile of excess cash I have sitting around though, I am so close to being able to talk myself into something extravagant.

This is the downside to rationalization. When you get as proficient as I am at convincing yourself of things, it's a slippery slope to rationalizing purchasing your dream car, based on the fact that you've put in your dues by driving around a TOM for nigh on to 8 years now, during which time never less than half of it's expected features were malfunctioning.

In my addled brain, I am due, dammit.

The battle wages constantly in my mind now, but I've yet to fall on either side of the fence. No matter what, I have two weeks more weeks to mull it over (I have put an embargo on any purchases before the 31st) but more and more I feel like I'm going to fall on the side of outlandish. I've never put much stock in fancy car ownership, but now that I'm seriously considering it, it's a heady and seductive thing. I mean, have you seen the look of a Jaguar? Just try and tell me it's not worth crippling financial debt to get to own one of those.

In any case, though, in 14 short days I'll actually own a car that has air conditioning. Isn't that just the neatest thing in the world?