Fix it again...

It has been four weeks, and again, here I am bragging to myself that I have not had a drop to drink.  My brother Steve thought I would last 1 day.  To be completely honest, I thought I would last only 1 day.  But here I am.  Four weeks in and not even the slightest temptation to drink wine.  And might I remind you, that includes living with one of the biggest winos of them all, Minette.  If I can survive being sober in a house with her, then I think I proved to myself that I am indeed not addicted to alcohol, which I knew all along, but needed to test myself anyway.  Here and there I get the question of "When?".  Every once in a while I think about "When?".  When will I start drinking again?  My birthday?  Some horrible day after work?  Minette's birthday (her suggestion)?  But I have to tell you, I don't really think about it.  Wait a minute.  Who am I?  And what have I done with the real Matt?






Well, recently it became very obvious that the old Matt is coming back, hopefully to stay.  Yes, with my decision to buy a car known to the entire world as possibly a big mistake, the old Matt of yore is back in action.  Once upon a time, in a state far, far away, I used to be a person that never went along with what was necessarily a smart choice.  I always tended to do stupid things, make rash decision, waste money, and not really care much about the consequences (even though I never got caught doing things I wasn't supposed to do).  For a while, I forgot how to live like that - you know, by the seat of my pants.  But now it's back.  Ok...maybe I am a more responsible person to some degree, and I do think about tomorrow to some extent, but not in any way that my financial advisor, Suze Orman, would ever condone.  I don't anticipate that I will ever appear on her "Can I Afford it?" segment, so what do I care.  Yes, back in September of 2010, I made the leap, after absolutely no consideration of what the consequences of such an action could be, a leap to put a deposit down on a Fiat 500 "Prima Edzione" #468.  I'll refer to her as "468".  

468.

468 was a pipe-dream for about a year and a half.  I've already blogged about my fascination with the Fiat 500 when I was in Europe during the summer of 2009.  I  saw the car and knew instantly that I wanted one, only to be slapped in the face with the reality that Fiats weren't sold in America and hadn't been sold here for 27 years (something about reliability blah, blah, blah, mumbo jumbo...).  I put the idea of buying it mostly out of sight, but not at all out of mind.  It would never come to the Untied States, so I figured it was a safe bet that I wouldn't be able to get one.  Until they decided to bring it the United States.  Now I was able to get one.  Well this is all just great news especially since I referenced Fiat (in not such a great light) during the summer of 2009.  Prior to going to Europe, Fiat was the butt of one of my jokes that no one ended up getting or appreciating, except myself.  I'm sure this happens a lot.  Anyway, here's the story:

The Fiat Charger, minus the rims.

During the summer of 2009, Carley and I drove cross country (a blog post for another time that also involved wine - go figure).  We stopped in North Carolina and stayed at my brother Mike's house for a day or two.  He had just bought this big ol' macho car called a Dodge Charger Wagon.  It was big and black and basically looked like a really fast hearse.  Well, the Chrysler/Fiat deal had just recently gone down during the whole government buyout of the American auto industry.  I made fun of him for buying a Fiat Charger and that it was a pile of crap as a result because heck, Fiats were piles of crap.  He had no clue as to what I was talking about, but I thought it was funny regardless.  Little did I know that soon, I would be eating those words...or maybe not.  To date I still have not taken ownership of 468.

The Homer.  

468 almost didn't happen.  I was going back and forth as to whether or not I should get one.  I was sent an email from Fiat that they were going to take reservations for the first 500 "500's" and would need $500 for a deposit.  I still wasn't sure.  They gave no information about the car other than what it looked like, sort of.  I only had images of the European version to go on, as well as the company telling me that they were going to make certain stylistic changes to it for the American market (in my mind, I pictured something similar to the "Homer" - the car that Homer Simpson created in the episode where he met his long-lost brother Herb).  Turns out that I missed the initial reservation period by the time I made up my mind to go ahead and reserve one.  Then, a few days later, I received another email from Fiat that said that someone backed out and #468 was available.  I was at work, probably in the middle of something important, and jumped on it immediately.  I was given the option of three colors to choose from - red, grey, or white, only they used the Italian words for the colors.  I chose Bianco (that's white for those of you who don't speak Italian).  We were also given the choice of two options...a sunroof (check) and an engine block heater (no check).  Then we were told nothing for a while.  

San Pellegrino.

Chianti.

Pizza.

Ragu.

Michael Corleone.

Now that I was buying a relatively major purchase of something quite Italian, I of course had to make a game out of it.  I started to embrace all that was Italian and annoy my friends.  San Pellegrino mineral water.  Chianti wine.  Pizza.  Ragu.  The Corleone family.  I was dead-set on becoming as Italian as I could, being the French-Canadian, Irish, Polish-American that I was.  I didn't keep up the running joke, but every once in a while I slip a little bit about my new-found Italian heritage, usually while ordering food or a drink.  Grazie...

My seats.

Over the course of the next few months, some more information about 468 was trickled out by the company.  First, they sent a photo of what the car would look like.  I'm glad I chose white.  Then they sent me an invitation by mail to the American debut of the Fiat 500 at the L.A. Auto Show, which fell on a Tuesday.  Damn.  I was working.  Then they sent another email.  This time they told us most of the options that the car came with (I won't bore you).  Then I went to the San Francisco Auto Show to see one in person.  I was in love instantly.  Then they sent a signed and numbered print of some artist's rendering of the Fiat 500.  Then they sent me another email saying that they were doing quality testing and that delivery of the car wouldn't be until February at the very earliest.  Then they sent another email saying that they are now constructing the Prima Edizione 500's and attached a photo of the front driver's seat.  Then they released all of the specification information about the Fiat 500.  Now all I'm waiting for is that damn car.

Fix It Again, Tony.

You know the saying that "Everyone's a critic"?  One constant critic in my life is my friend Sofia.  Through her pessimism, she has this amazing way of grounding people and making them think a bit more rationally about things.  The minute I told her of my decision to buy a Fiat, she immediately said, "You know what 'Fiat' stands for, don't you?  Fix It Again, Tony".  Yeah.  We'll see when she gets her BMW 2002.  God, I hope she's not right though.  Memories of Joan the Saab have come to mind.  Has it really been 7 years since Joan has been out of my life?  Have I forgotten what it was like to spend hours upon hours waiting for my car to be repaired?  Am I ready to give up a life of dependable, Japanese automobiles that have no style, yet substance?  Probably.  I was once known for making such rash decisions in the past.  After all, I did buy Joan after seeing her on the side of the road and test-driving her after she wouldn't start and needed a jump.  I may be smart in some ways, but when it comes to the emotional decision of purchasing my own cars, I can be as dumb as they come.  Bring it on...