Goldilocks, cars and love

Wandering in from the forest, Goldilocks found something wrong with everything in the house of the three bears. One chair was too big, the next was too big too, but the next was just right, at first, then broke into pieces when she sat down.

One bed was too hard, one was too soft, the other was just right, at first, and she was lulled off to slumber. Until three hungry bears showed up and stared her smack in the face.

I know how she felt. After driving nine cars in search of a replacement for the 2003 Green Goblin, nothing is just right. No matter how much I try to get comfy and cozy, it’s a bear of a world out there.

One car has a sexy dashboard but a headrest so hard it could give you a concussion not prevent it; another has a seat so firm it could glue your derriere to your pubic bone; a third has enough cargo space for a sushi roll and a bottle of water; another could clean- out your bank account in repairs; another has these colors: light grey, medium grey, pearlescent grey, and charcoal grey, the exact hues a woman trying to hide her grey avoids.

What’s most bizarre is everyone knows there’s a problem, this one weird thing about this one car. The buyers know, the salesmen know, the makers know. When you mention it, they hang their head. For some reason, at the final second of creating a vehicle hoping to win awards and gain followers — one fatal flaw was added, just to keep life interesting.

It’s kind of like choosing a mate. He or she might be attractive, smart, wealthy, caring, even has a job— but then refuses to go with you to a movie marathon or wears shorts with sock and loafers. No one can live with that. When I was 13 years old, I hada boyfriend who gave me a $ 3 necklace with an engagement ring and wedding band attached. At that age, like Goldilocks in the fairy tale, I thought he was just right. I heard he became a car salesman. Maybe I should have stuck around for a two- for- one.

“So you like the car?” my latest salesman asks, reminding me again it’s the number one small SUV in its class — the same thing all the other salesmen claim. “Yeah, but it’s too high off the ground,” I say, “I can barely get in.” He hangs his head. I don’t know how people see a car at a distance and decide that’s the one for them. Like a mate, I need to run my hand over the seats, feel the bumpers, spend a mile on its wheels. Make sure it doesn’t have a flaw I can’t live with or live without.

And if there are flaws— maybe a slightly shallow interior, some slightly mediocre headroom, maybe slightly off- color — I want to know I can live with them. Definitely not an ugly rear end.

No one can live with that.

This is what I tell my husband after another day with the bears. It’s not only the great features that drew me to you, I say, not only your well- proportioned body or your roomy compartments with lots of space for me to fit in, not all your bells and whistles.

What made me finally sign on the dotted line was the lack of something horrible, something I feared would break me to pieces as time went on.

I bet Goldilocks would have agreed. If she didn’t live in a fairy tale, at some point she may have needed a mate and a car too. She may have been looking for “just right,” but I bet she would have been happy with decisions that didn’t send her running into the woods.