I'd rather be boring?

I woke up around 7:35 today, a bit early for me, but have to unload the furniture from the truck and then drive the sluggish diesel 1 ton back to Vancouver through the clogged border and even more clogged Oak Street, all the way to the edge of Coal Harbor.

The truck is a big, 14 foot long, 10 foot high, Green box on the wheels. It has huge side view mirrors that do not adjust well, so I'm not sure who and what is behind me. Even though it has a big windshield and also the driver and passenger side windows the cabin feels dark, and when I put my entire body weight on the gas pedal (accelerator) it ambles in about a minute to 60 miles an hour while producing loud noises attesting to its efforts to respond to my need to speed.

Renting it was quite an experience too. Andrea, was so thorough, that I felt I was buying a house, applying for Immigration and going for a prostrate exam - that's how many places to sign for renting a truck in Canada - also more expensive and much harder to find (a place to rent trucks) than the US.

Ford 450 is big, slow but does the job. Andrea was thorough and also does her job. Both are boring, but essential, as they get you here to there for sure.

On the other hand the 302 horsepower, E500, with heated and cooled leather seats, tiptronic transmission, selectable drive modes, a sun roof that spans the whole top of the car is a beauty on huge chrome wheels. It feeds lust. It responds to mere nudges, going berserk from standstill to blurry fast with a slight tap on the gas. Going to Vancouver yesterday I clocked 165 miles per hour, and it hugged the road and curves tight like holding a lover in throes of hard sex.

It is definitely not boring, but it is definitely frustrating because it is at the dealer so often - air suspension pump, shock absorber, hydraulic brake pump, heater motor, brakes sensor and so on and on. Something is always breaking and now that extended warranty has expired always expensive. The dealer is fantastic, the car is high maintenance.

So I am thinking why not go boring but predictable rather than thrilling but unreliable? Time and life is too short to spend tending to cars when each day is one day less to do something more.

Is it time to turbocharge the turtle or discipline the hare?

But being a man I can't ask myself that seriously as there's no way an animal analogy will make me a smarter man. I just have to decide whether I want sketchy life of glitz, or self effacing reliable living.

We test drove a Lexus the other day, and it wasn't as much fun - Nidhi vouches for that - as the Mercedes, but it's the need of the time - our time - to save time - symbolically and really.

But then Corvette - sexy thunder on wheels - calls ............