This coming from the woman who goes through catalogs, circling items. But hey, at least my items don't smell like motor oil and rubber.

We've been looking for a car for a while, but wanted to make sure the other car that we'd keep -- the newer of the two that's cost us hundreds in the last few months -- was going to, you know, turn on. Work. Have functional bits and pieces.

Now that it -- knock on something hard and woodlike -- seems to work OK, we're tentatively looking through Auto Plus magazines and circling cars we like.

Check that.

Dave's looking through Auto Plus magazine and yelling out cars he likes.

"Let's look through that magazine tonight," he said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's boring."

"It's boring?"

Yes, did I stutter? It's boring to me to look through a magazine to pick out cars you never will have in order to spend thousands on something you have to go to the stupid car lot to pick out anyhow. We never seriously buy cars from those freebie magazines. (I say it as if we've bought many cars before as a couple, and have them stored in our back yard on blocks or under bright blue tarps with cement blocks and yellow rope holding it together.) It's like looking through an issue of Vogue. I hate it. I will never be that skinny and tall. I will never look that angry all the time like the models do. I will never wear that thing -- plaid? Seriously? No.

No. No magazines. I prefer my escapes from reality to be in a slightly less moring form.